When I was in middle school I kept a journal. I didn’t write in my diary every single night, but it was always there, ready to listen, ready to help me work through thoughts and feelings I wasn’t quite ready to share with anyone else.
I’m not sure what happened to those diaries, or when they stopped being important enough for me to care. But now, more than twenty years later, I often wish I’d held onto those journals.
Like many writers, I’m completely obsessed with writing instruments. I’m admittedly snobbish about which pens I use. (The disposable pens in my possession serve one purpose–to be loaned to other people.) But my true obsession is notebooks and journals. I fall in love with them as easily as a tween falls in love with the teenage heart throb du jour. I collect them the way the eccentric lady up the block collects cats. I write in them with the frequency of rainfall in the Mojave Desert.
Time and again, I start a new journal, determined to maintain it faithfully. But within a few weeks it becomes one more chore, and eventually it falls by the wayside. Still when I run across another journal, I fall in love all over and the process starts again. Maybe this time will be different. 😉
What about you? Did you keep a journal as a kid? Do you keep one now?
I love journaling and have changed how I journal recently. I used to fill the pages with bloody angst, and while I still use my journal as a sacred venting ground, I’m a little more cognizant of the ramifications this could have if read after my unfortunate demise.
As for journals– I love to go to the back-to-school sales and pig out on composition books for cheap and big packets of bic pens. Every now and again I’ll indulge in something special, but mostly I like the cheap stuff! But I am a notebook hoarder, for sure.
It’s great that you still journal. I really want to get into it again and stick to it.
Those are just my pretty journals. I have tons of other notebooks, including filled ones. Every now and then I labor over whether to throw used notebooks away, fearing I throw away some brilliant nugget I’ll never be able to come up with again. LOL. Back to school sales are great. I love crazy, bold patterns. As for pens, right now I’m all about the multi-color pack of Uniball Signo 207s. 🙂
I love cool looking journal books…got a few faves…leather bound with inside pockets. But…most of my journaling in the past has been in composition books. It’s like I don’t want to write in the others unless it’s PERFECT and written in calligraphy or something!
I like the uniballs…nice smooth lines with a nib that grips the paper. I write hard, so a ballpoint feels slippery on the page.
Nice place you have here. Real girly-girl. 🙂
Hey M.L.!
Great to see you here! I have my share of composition notebooks. And like you, I use those regularly. I’d never thought about it, but maybe that is why I have yet to write a word in my prettiest journals. It’s like I think they are too good to actually use. Thanks for the compliment on my site. We’ll be under construction here in about a week, but I’m definitely going to try to keep the “girly-girl” in full effect. 🙂