Words are my gift and my passion. I speak a lot, read a lot and write a lot.
I have realised that my journalling, blog and scrapbooks may be affecting my life.
Where a person who isn't an obsessive, compulsive 'journaller' may not even be able to tell you what they did yesterday; someone who is compulsive about recording their life, like I am, will be able to tell you when they went to the doctor, how much it rained on March 1st 2009 and how many haircuts they had in a year.
A journal is a record of thoughts and events and for most people it is often a haphazard project over the years. I began on of my most detailed journals when I began dating my first serious boyfriend at age 15. This journal took the form of daily letters, dutifully carried between us by his obliging sister (my best friend). When my marriage to him eventually broke up, I sat and cried, as I destroyed all the letters and my hopes and dreams. They were no longer part of my life and now over 22 years later I do not regret the destruction, but mourn the memories lost. It was however, at the time an essential ending to that part of my life.
My next serious journal began as I started my new life with a new partner and my now husband of 21 years. Over the years I have written journals covering my children's first few year's of life, major moves, dramas and upsets. Some of them are books filled to the brim with words, others just have a few pages written on and then abandoned.
Then I discovered scrapbooking - it was a match made in heaven. My passion for photography could be combined with my love or writing and the journal album was born. I discovered calendar pages and with these I could record the mundane but interesting events of our lives; which child had tonsillitis, when the car was service and so on. The 'big' events were captured with photographs and words, but the little things that make up our daily existence also had their place.
Boxes and boxes of photos and memorabilia filled my house. I collected brochures and postcards from trips, these made their way into the albums, but I often kept a spare copy - just in case! Not content with one copy, I always printed two copies of each photo so my children would be able to have their own record. There are three of them and a single album cannot be split three ways, so one day they would be able to make their own memory album, using my original as a reference.
The next step for me in this process was discovering blogging. Every day I could connect online and share my thoughts, inspirations or just daily happenings and I seem to have a lot of these. Not content with just posting something, I copied and saved each post to a file and then saved it onto disc; because who knows when I might want to look back and read what I was thinking, doing, saying on any particular day?
Now I have achieved the ultimate height - the digital photo album. With nearly 80 pages of photos and journalling covering just 83 days of this year alone, my obsession is exposed. Every event is photographed or written about, added to the calendar, photos uploaded immediately onto the computer and scrap booked.
There is a positive of this obsession; I have beautiful, wonderful memory albums of our lives. The ups and downs, the good and the bad, the exciting and the ordinary and when needing a trip down memory lane all I need to do is pick up an album.
The negative of this obsession is that I have at my finger tips so much information about my life.
Details that most people need to forget; information that is irrelevant. We often only remember the highlights (good and bad) of our life; because it is by doing so that we are not overwhelmed by what seems to be an accumulated life of issues and things to overcome. The fact that the car broke down twice in a month would normally be forgotten and only the drive to the picnic spot remembered; but I remember everything and my memory is full.
So is it a blessing or a curse? I still don't know. Am I going to stop writing, journalling and recording? I just don't know; but at least I have paused and now will consider what to do next. Or maybe I will just write about it!
6 comments:
This is true in so many ways, but oh so funny in other ways. YOU stop writing, can't see it happening before the world comes to an end. You love to write, you are good at it, and I think you would feel totally lost if you could not record your feelings and thoughts either electronically with your family and friends, or privately in your own little journal. Keep on writing, please, I for one look every day to see if you have posted something.
Mom, your comments are wonderful thank you for the support. I can't see me stopping writing either.
Beverly, I used to write a lot about my life, now I only have time for my P365 with my studies, is that a curse or a blessing? I am thinking a blessing, only the more positive events are remembered, the negativity I can let go of. I still do write on occasion to let things go or sort through things in my life, weighting the pros and the cons, expressing all feelings about events or situations, but once they're gone, they're gone.
I'd say keep writing, your heart will be your guide. Just allow your heart to keep rhythm with your keystrokes is my suggestion. Works for me anyways!
Cheers!
No, no...please don't stop writing ever. It's your blessing, your catharsis. It's our pleasure to read them. At worst perhaps you need a 'noise' filter but please don't stop sharing your wonderful memories with us. Like Mom, every day I check for my Vesta fix. I'm disappointed when there isn't one but look forward to the next. I may not always respond to a blog post but rest assured I always read them. That and everything else you send me. Writing is your gift that you have to share with the world, don't tuck it away into a dark corner - you will be half the person you are right now.
If you didn't write you wouldn't have such wonderful people sending such incredibly supportive comments (I LOVE that your family is just so connected with you, and full of praise), neither would you be developing new friendships.
I would like you to prioritise MORE WRITING and less of all the other stuff so we can have the second Creators Novel! No pressure, though. LOL.
Well Beverly by the sounds of all these comments it is definitely a case of KEEP WRITING. Michelle has a very very relevant point, bring on Book 2 of the Creators.
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