A Journal Treasure

 

In past posts, I have written about how we are starting to downsize as we slowly get ready for our next move. A few weeks ago, we decided to finish up going through the boxes of packed away belongings to see if there was anything left we could donate or throw away or save for the next move.

We also decided to go through some of the boxes that are storing our books. We have a lot of books, so much so that we don’t have enough room in our current home to keep them all out, as we did in our home in Idaho. But we wanted to see if there was anything we might have forgotten that we would want to somehow find room for them, rather than keeping them stored in the garage. That is when I came across these journals shown in the picture above. I had completely forgotten about them!

 The one on the right looks a bit tattered, and that’s because our sweet girl, Barley, was bored one day and decided to see if this was something worth shredding. All I have in there are poems and lyrics to songs, and I have no idea why I thought it a good idea to do that.  I guess at the time, they were words that had meaning for me. That might have been a journal I would consider throwing away, but the Barley art makes it definitely a must-keeper!

The one next to it actually belongs to my husband. He didn’t fill this journal, but he did give me permission to read it. I have not read all the entries, but I now know the exact date he felt he loved me. If that is not a treasure find, I don’t know what is. The other two are entries about vacations I took with my best friend at the time and probably some other important things going on in my life back in the early 1970s. I haven't read everything just yet.

But another wonderful treasure I found were a few loose pages that fell out while I was reading. In the summer of 1967, I spent a month at my dad’s place when he lived in Los Angeles. It was my first time flying, I was 15 years old and was flying alone. I do remember a nice couple sitting next to me, and the woman was amazed that I wasn’t nervous, because she was. I was too excited to be nervous, I guess. I noted on these pages the flight number, time, and even that I had chicken for lunch. No tiny bag of peanuts or pretzels in those days!

I only wrote what we did each day. There are no passages about my feelings about visiting with Dad and his wife. I only wrote a few lines about each day, even on the days we stayed home for the day. I always thought that Mary (Dad’s wife) had taken me to see the Queen Mary ship that was permanently docked at one of the ports in LA. Instead, it was the SS Princess Louise, where we toured the ship, had lunch there, and even saw a replica of the Crown Jewels of England! A fond memory corrected! What a surprise for me that I found those pages, forgotten who knows how long ago.

Even though I did not go into any kind of detail into what I was feeling and thinking during that time with my dad, for the most part, I do remember how I felt. And, yes, I'm going to write down my thoughts on that trip, especially now that it is so fresh for me. Reading those passages definitely took me back in time.

My only regret is that I didn’t journal more than those few in the photo. I wish I had written more during my high school and college years; when I first got out of college; my first job after I graduated or even the years I worked at Children’s Hospital while in school. Now I feel as if I have missed out of my life a bit. I have the memories, but so many missed details. I know I have said it many times, but journaling can be so rewarding. It is rewarding! I have learned new aspects about myself, even with just the few writings I have from my younger years.

Of course, now I have so many journals I write in all the time, once I'm gone, I wonder how much of it will be read by my family and future generations to come. My hope is that they will treasure my words as much as I have had writing them. How about you?

Thanks for stopping by. Remember: Keep reading. Keep writing. Enjoy your day.