Memoirs of a Kitten: You keep a journal?

[CaptMurdock]

In going through my Zip disks and clearing out old apps that I had backed up, I came across an old Hypercard stack. It was an old journal that I had completely forgotten I had kept. I had actually started this back in the early 90's, when I still had my old Mac Classic.

Luckily, MS Word was able to open this document; a few garbage characters, some old Hyperscript coding, nothing I couldn't get around, and I was able to drag-n-drop the old entries into my current journal.

There was a lot of stuff from that period that I had completely forgotten about...f'rinstance, the scare I had when my ophthalmologist told me about the vascularizaiton of my cornea, due to wearing my contact lenses too long. This could have led to blindness in that eye. Yikes! There's other stuff, like my ruminations at the collapsed S&L I worked at for a couple of years, the friends I hung around with, the relationship I was in at the time.

It's amazing what we forget. In the words of Douglas Coupland, human beings are amnesia machines.

****

In any case, my question: who here keeps a journal? I don't necessarily mean an LJ or MySpace page, I mean a program or document that you record your most private, intimate thoughts. Maybe even a pen & paper journal.

Tell me tell me tell me...

[wt4ever]

i have two actual pen and paper journals. one from sophmore year in high school, and the other is the more recent one. its always so funny to re read what i wrote. the sophmore one was when i went from thinking i was straight and trying to convince myself i was, to thinking i was bi then accepting i am a lesbian. interesting stuff. to me at least, heh

[MagicPancakes]

When I moved out of my parents' house I came across a few journals I had forgotten about...pen-and-paper ones from when I was 13 or 14 and one from my sophomore year in high school when I was 15. I also found my old journal from my senior year (the first of two). The second journal form my senior year, I started and after I graduated I didn't write in it nearly as much. That's still my current pen-and-paper one but I have no idea when the last entry is from, its probably over a year old. I had several online ones too but I deleted them all because I didn't like the idea of anyone being able to read it, and even making it private made me uncomfortable because you just never know.

Its kinda cool to go back and read what I was thinking, feeling, at the age of 14....a big 6 years ago..haha. But I definitely changed dramatically (which is a good thing because I was alot more of a loser back then).

[CaptMurdock]

Its kinda cool to go back and read what I was thinking, feeling, at the age of 14....a big 6 years ago..haha. But I definitely changed dramatically (which is a good thing because I was alot more of a loser back then).

I know what you mean. These old entries start thirteen years ago, when I was still living at home, before I met my wife and well before the birth of my son. A whole different world....

[writerfreak]

I actually never kept a journal until a year ago January 27th. I remember the day because it was the day I got it as a gift from a woman I am proud to call my "surrogate" grandmother. It's a beautiful leatherbound journal, though I do keep an LJ sometimes, and MySpace and DeviantArt. Only my truest thoughts are forever inked into it.

writerfreak

[Saena]

I've had a lot of journals over the years. I think I started my first one on my ninth birthday. Most of them were actually rather impersonal- more updates on the things I'd been doing than my innermost feelings or some such. I also have never been able to conform to the "finish one journal, start the next" pattern, which is why I ended up, when I was about 13, with 3 different journals (all essentially with the same purpose) going at one time.

Then, when I was in 10th grade (I think January 3, 2003, to be exact) I decided that I really needed a journal specifically for those innermost thoughts. So I started one, and kept it on-and-off for the last three years. I finished it at the end of 2006, and started a new one New Year's Day 2007. So far the new one has four or five entries in it. I also keep a journal where I record my progress in the areas of writing and performing. It's a good way to log my ideas and keep a record of all the strides I make creatively. And it's fun to look back on where some of my ideas were when they were babies.

Saena

[-Always-]

When I was little I kept about 4 or 5 different journals, but I only ever wrote from the frist half or so, then forgot about them or threw them away. Although I look back now and wish I would have kept them. About 2 and a half years ago I got a beautiful (pen and paper) journal from my mom, and I promissed myself that I wouldn't just forget about it. It worked. I'v written my most private feelings and ideas about the world. (and re-reading them I can see how niieve I was, but also how much I'v grown for the better.)
It's weird how I should find this topic today, because just yesterday I finished the last page and started another journal (one just like the old one). It's nice to be able to look back on my past, on how my feelings and actions have changed, and how much I'v grown towards being the woman I want to be.