“Preserve your memories, keep them well, what you forget you can never retell.” - Louisa May Alcott
Last week, I touched on five antidotes I’ve found to hard mornings. For a few posts, I plan to do a deeper dive on one of them: journaling. Especially for those of you who responded with “oh my goodness, I’ve thought about journaling, but can’t bring myself to begin,” I want to start with why I journal.
I’ve had different motivations over time.
Early on, my ten-year-old self ended every day spilling over with worries and hopes small and large—for a ten-year-old—and my journals were a place to put them. “Please let Courtney not be mad at me tomorrow.” Oh yes, and “Please don’t let me or my brother get kidnapped or murdered.” (There was quite a lot of talk about kidnapping and murder in those early journals!) I had what felt like fears and feelings too big for others to contain when I was younger. My mom saw this and bought me my first blank book.
When my daughter Noa is eight, I plan to buy her a journal. Or earlier—sooner than she seems ready, because I may not know when she is ready. If you have a young person in your life, consider it. You never know the habit it might create or the salve it might become.
Later, in high school and college, my journals were a place to record events and feelings, especially those I was not ready to share yet. Journaling helped me sort through them. These entries were a lot longer.
For a decade after graduating from law school, I stopped entirely. Even looking back, I’m not sure why I did. But once I was out of the habit, it took a long time to pick it back up.
What shook up my routine and encouraged me to dive back in was a holiday gift from my mom: a five-year journal with Jane Austen quotes for each day and a short space for daily entries underneath. Large blank books for journaling didn’t feel manageable at the time, but these spaces for daily snippets did.
That small book has now become one of my most treasured possessions. In it, each day of the year, I see a snapshot of my experience for the previous four. I can relive the days before COVID. The early days of the pandemic. My two months sick with the Alpha variant and follow-on pneumonia. My journey to IVF and to Noa. My maternity leave, return to work, decision to change jobs. The day of the book deal. One year later, almost to the day, when my final edits were accepted. And a year after that, when I had finished my final travel event as part of the book launch.
Common threads run through these pages, more apparent as the years pile on. Oh yes, I have always felt this creeping doubt about how others see me. And a good day always follows a hard stretch. Just give it time, I tell myself now.
Building this habit has also made me ready for the blank page again. For a type of journaling I will describe in a few weeks. And for two journals focused on motherhood.
Next week, for those who do journal, or those who have a close relative who does, I’ll dive into one of the biggest questions opened up for me by telling the story of L.M. Montgomery, who not only kept but edited her journals for publication: What will become of them after we are gone?
As you know, what will happen with my journals since age 10 after I’m gone has recently been a discussion. Interestingly, I am more interested and feel safer in my grandchildren seeing my journals than my children. Why is that, you ask? Children have history and their own emotional experiences of events, such as divorce, for example, and have their independent emotions and experiences about them. It may be harder to accept or forgive a parent for their then separate views, emotions, and experiences. Grandchildren are likely to be more separated from the events and emotions and simply be interested and nonjudgmental. They just know gramma for who she is with them without the baggage. And grammas just adore their grandchildren, so how bad can their experience be? They were not there to have a separate experience and thus they are more likely to just be curious and genuinely interested in knowing grandma without judgement. Indeed , grandchild may laugh at grandma’s bloopers and indiscretions, whereas a child may be judgmental or hurt. What will happen to my journals when I’m gone? It isn’t an easy question to answer. One thing is for sure: if one waits until they are gone from this world to share journals, it deprives the reader of an opportunity to ask questions, discuss, and understand what and why more clearly. Indeed, does it deprive the reader of closure? Good question, huh?