Journaling

   Recently I received a couple of very nice journals as presents. This brings the total number of bound journals I own up to about five.
  The problem is I'm not quite sure what to do with them. That sounds pretty silly doesn't it. It's obvious what you do with a journal, you write in it. I shouldn't have a problem with this. After all I've been writing this column for roughly four years. I think I can say that I am a writer.
  Except for to do and grocery lists, I've never been much for writing things down every day. I don't lead any kind of exciting life where it would make sense to keep a journal. It would be different if I travelled a lot, or discovered new things or was a performer and kept track of my performances. It would be different if I had children. Then I could write about my experiences in the hopes that they could read it and maybe learn from it. The fact of the matter is that that I'm pretty ordinary and if anyone would find my journals many years from now they would not reveal anything wildly interesting. No deep dark secrets. No hidden anything.
 I think my reluctance to journal stems from a few experiences that happened when I was in school. There were two times where I was required to keep a journal. Once when I was receiving some counseling to help me during some of the worst of the bullying, I was told to keep a journal. I did and I had to bring it to my sessions. I didn't like to writ back then,so I pretended to write to a far away friend. It helped me to at least put something down on paper, but it was a difficult task. I found it a few years back. I read a few pages and it was so painful I put it away. I had mixed feelings. On one hand I was grateful that I wasn't in that place anymore and had moved on,but I wished I'd never been in that place to begin with. I wasn't sure what to do with the journal. I didn't want to keep it, but I also didn't want to throw it away. I settled for putting it in a safe place, one where I wouldn't see it unless I looked for it.
  When I was in tenth grade English class we were required to journal during class. Once a week for about half an hour we had to write in a notebook that was our journal. The notebooks would be turned in once a week for our teacher to read. I hated that. I didn't know what to write. I didn't want to journal what I thought or felt because I didn't know who would see it. The teacher had a son in my class. He could have poked into the work his father brought home to do. The last thing I wanted was my private thoughts being made public for ridicule by my classmates. I wanted to write about what a stupid assignment this was, but I wanted to pass the class. At that time I could write with both hands. The teacher would walk around the room to make sure we were writing. I would start out by using my right hand. When he passed by me I would switch to my left hand. After he passed by my seat again, I would use my right hand. I don't know if he noticed at all, but at least it kept me amused. I'm not sure what I wrote though. I threw away most of the things I had from high school a long time ago.
  I have kept some journal like things on and off. A few years back when gratitude journals, Bibles, study guides and self help books were popular, my mother bought me a gratitude journal. Every day I wrote three things for which I was grateful. It was fairly easy. I found the book a couple years ago and I leafed through it. Every day I was thankful for my cats. Sometimes I would say why I was grateful for them. It was fun to see what I was grateful for back then. I was not married at that time, but was dating someone. Some of what I wrote was about that.
  Right now C and I are working on a book called, "Q and A a day". It's a book that asks a question a day every day for five years. Each day of the year has a different question.  So far we are three years into it. Some of our answers are the same every year. Sometimes they are different. Sometimes it's funny to see what we come up with.
  It occurs to me that those five blank books are blank. There is no law that says I have to cover each page with prose. I could start writing down three things for which I am grateful. I could write down one nice thing that happened to me each day. I could continue with the question a day when the five year book runs out. I really need to do something with these books. They are all so beautiful and it is a waste to leave them empty.
   A new year will be starting soon. I could gather those books and do something with them. There's all kinds of things I could do. I like to try to do something new every year. I think it's time to fill those journals.