Unwrapping: Working It Out On Paper

For as long as I can remember, I have been . . . a documentor. 

As a girl, I kept secret diaries.  As I grew older, I was drawn to journaling.  As a mother, I tracked my kids' daily antics on calendars with big date-spaces.  As a gardener, I maintain detailed notes and drawings in dirt-covered notebooks.  Until recently (when I "went digital"), I documented my entire career in day-planners.  I have kept a family Christmas journal since Erin's first Christmas.  Now, I have this blog.  I'm not sure why, but I am drawn to recording my life.  Documenting my actions.  Committing it to words.  Working things out on paper.

This stack of journals (each one absolutely crammed from beginning to end) covers the period of my life from 1999 through 2009 . . . about the time I started this blog.

My journals are private.  Not that I write about private matters, necessarily.  No, they're just . . . for me.   My own space.  A window on what's going on in my mind.  My journals are much more than writing, though.  I tape in pictures and cards and quotes I especially like, or mementoes like ticket stubs and program books and postcards.

I include dreams and goals and frustrations and disappointments.  Plans and hopes and fears and wonders.  I tend to be a lot more. . . grumpy and neurotic. . . in my jounals than I am in "real life."  (Maybe that's because I get through it in my journals?)

I really do a lot of thinking . . . through writing . . . in my journals.

It's much different (for me, at least) than blogging.   I mean, I'm pretty frank in my blog posts.  I share a lot about my life and my joys and my fears; I think it's pretty clear . . . who I AM.  But.  I'm hyper-aware that this is all public.  That anyone can read it.  That anyone can know me.  So I'm very intentional about what I include in my blog posts. . . and what I don't!

Journaling -- on paper -- offers a release and a "place" that my blog just can't.

My journaling has declined since I started my blog.  Lately, I've been feeling the pull to begin journaling again - in earnest.  Not instead of blogging, but alongside blogging.

Now, I need both outlets in my life. 

After all . . . I am a documentor!