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I'm surprised anyone throws out their journals! Unless they were once therapeutic and have become distant memories you never want to relive, I just can't imagine it. They are physical evidence of your existence! Something you can look back on later in life to relive your childhood memories, or give your grandchildren so they can read about your life.
I've simply stored all of my journals in a box in my room. In my opinion, they are my life and if someone were to discover and read them, I wouldn't be ashamed of anything. Therefor, I don't really feel the need to hide them, but not that that's not all right.
Journaling has had such an impact on my life that I even made a website dedicated to the art of keeping various journals.
Check out Moderator cut: No outside journals, blogs, personal websites, Myspace, FB links allowed. for more info.
-David Byers
Journaling as a way of life
I'm the one who started this thread and am surprised it's coming back alive after almost a year. I wouldn't have known it,but I got a reputation message. You're right and I do regret throwing away those five years worth and don't intend on throwing any that I have now away. I just wondered what everyone else did. What is your website dedicated to the art of journaling? I'd like to check it out. Thanks!
Does anyone else out there keep a journal? I started doing it several years ago and find it very therapeutic. What I'd like to know is what do you do with them when they accumulate? When I had a huge change in my life,I threw away about five years worth and now in my new life,I've accumulated about that many more. It's fun, enlightening,and informative to look back on them....but for how long? Should I keep them indefinitely? forever? What do you all do? Just curious.
This is a good question. I encouraged my daughter to start keeping journals when she was a young teen. She's now 18, and has a stack of notebooks and journals--she's kept them all. And no, I never once read them!
I have kept journals sporadically. At Christmas, my work unit does a name-pick things for gifts. A coworker who is another can't-quit-the-day-job writer bought me a book on writing book proposals and a new journal. I haven't yet written in it, and reading your post just reminded me that I'd made it a New Year's goal to do so. It is indeed very therapeutic.
I think my problem with keeping them is fear that someone will read them someday. That is not necessarily a bad thing, but the thought of it does make me self-edit somewhat and tend not to be so free about what I write down.
I think journals are great, but they aren't so great when someone interlopes into your privacy and reads them. My 1st husband got nosey one day and found out the hard way just how how caustic my anger was towards him, and let's just say that it was "the push" to end a failing marriage.
I still write into a journal once in awhile, but only to record facts that I want/need to retain, and never when I'm angry. Writing while angry is very therapeutic but I wad those up when I'm done and burn them. Certain things are safest kept inside me.
Written words can be fun and historical down the road ~ even therapeutic. They can also be dangerous if used irresponsibly.
Why not transcribe them and store them online at one of the various journal services? The reason I say that is heaven forbid there is ever a fire. You'd lose your precious written memories.
You don't have to make an online journal public--most of the journaling services have ways of password protecting them so they remain private. The bonus is that you can also upload photos to go with your entries. Some journal services will host the photos if you pay a nominal fee, or you can create an account on a free photo-sharing site and create links so the photos show up in your entries.
If you want to leave your journals for posterity, you can always note the URL and password in a document to be opened upon your passing.
I think journals are great, but they aren't so great when someone interlopes into your privacy and reads them. My 1st husband got nosey one day and found out the hard way just how how caustic my anger was towards him, and let's just say that it was "the push" to end a failing marriage.
I still write into a journal once in awhile, but only to record facts that I want/need to retain, and never when I'm angry. Writing while angry is very therapeutic but I wad those up when I'm done and burn them. Certain things are safest kept inside me.
Written words can be fun and historical down the road ~ even therapeutic. They can also be dangerous if used irresponsibly.
I've written journals as far back as I can remember. I keep them a few years, re-read, then destroy. Why? I write for myself and write the truth. There were/are/will always be things I write that I never want anyone to know about. I find by writing things down and reading later I can find solutions to most of my problems.
As a poet I can also chronicle my life. However, in poetry I have leeway to change things, but I still know exactly what I meant. My meanings are not always what others get out of my poetry, but that is what I want as a poet - I want the reader to take from each piece what they need.
No one has ever read my journals (and hopefully no one ever will), but I will continue to write, re-read and destroy. I've noticed there are less embarrassing things in my writings these days, so I must be living right and handling stress well.
I actually enjoy writing when angry! Of course, these are the pages that get shredded as soon as I am done venting and re-reading. I let it all out when I am mad!
I've written journals as far back as I can remember. I keep them a few years, re-read, then destroy. Why? I write for myself and write the truth. There were/are/will always be things I write that I never want anyone to know about. I find by writing things down and reading later I can find solutions to most of my problems.
As a poet I can also chronicle my life. However, in poetry I have leeway to change things, but I still know exactly what I meant. My meanings are not always what others get out of my poetry, but that is what I want as a poet - I want the reader to take from each piece what they need.
No one has ever read my journals (and hopefully no one ever will), but I will continue to write, re-read and destroy. I've noticed there are less embarrassing things in my writings these days, so I must be living right and handling stress well.
I actually enjoy writing when angry! Of course, these are the pages that get shredded as soon as I am done venting and re-reading. I let it all out when I am mad!
I do that, too. I write down all the angry, awful things I want to say to people, and sometimes to God, lol, and then I destroy them.
I actually enjoy writing when angry! Of course, these are the pages that get shredded as soon as I am done venting and re-reading. I let it all out when I am mad!
It's much more effective if you roll up the paper and then whap the jerkies about the head and shoulders with it.
Does anyone else out there keep a journal? I started doing it several years ago and find it very therapeutic. What I'd like to know is what do you do with them when they accumulate? When I had a huge change in my life,I threw away about five years worth and now in my new life,I've accumulated about that many more. It's fun, enlightening,and informative to look back on them....but for how long? Should I keep them indefinitely? forever? What do you all do? Just curious.
I've been a diary keeper for over 50 years and I still have all of the books I've written including the first one I started at ten. I keep them all in a big tin box with a note on top for my trusted niece (who also writes) to burn them after I die. I don't read them often---maybe every five years---but I find them well worth keeping for the reasons you mentioned. I've also gone through them and copied references to a good friend and put them book to give to her to mark our 50 years of friendship. She loved it.
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