Journaling

I am addicted to journaling. I began journaling while I was a freshman in high school. I didn't start because I needed the "Dear Diary" experience - I'm afraid my reasons were much more pedestrian - my handwriting was horrible, and I wanted to do something that would force me to have better handwriting. Weird huh? How many guys do you know who want to have nice penmanship? At first it was hard. I didn't know what to write about and I was horribly self-conscious about what I wrote. I look back on those first journals now and I have to laugh. I think about the things that I thought were so dramatic, and I roll my eyes and sigh!



Well, the years have gone by, and I've achieved what I set out to do, I've made my handwriting very nice. Chris says I have the nicest handwriting of any man she knows. I don't pride myself in the handwriting so much as the journaling itself. It has quite literally, saved my sanity. There are journal entries I wish I never had to make, or journal entries I wish I could get rid of, but something in me stops me from throwing them out or burning them. This is my life. I put effort into recording it, it helped me think through my struggles, and it records my triumphs and my pain. WHY would I get rid of that? I've told my family that all my journals are full of reality, and that sometimes reality isn't pretty, doesn't use clean language, says things it "shouldn't" and sometimes is simply shocking... what of it? This is me - no pretense, no bullshit, it's just me.


One of my most prized possessions is my journal I had with me when I went to Israel. In it I recorded some of the most important events of my life. I made lots of drawings and sketches, I shared what the Holy Land meant to me, and I recorded the amazingly powerful experience of laying my hands, palms flat, on the Wailing Wall and resting my forhead on the rocks and feeling it literally humming with power. I'll never forget that. Each night I wrote about the events of the day. There isn't an entry in all the time I was in Israel that isn't at least fifteen pages long. I'll scan in some of my drawings from that journal and post them here someday... someday when I want to share it with the world.

Journaling. Secret keeping? No. Safe haven? Yes. Priceless? You bet. Will I ever NOT do it? As long as I can hold a pen in my hand, there will always be a journal near by.

This is me... take it or leave it.