Journaling! A Pathway to Clarity

I've been journaling for years now. Before that I would communicate regularly
with my older sister via snail mail. We would be constantly composing long tombs to one another relating our daily doings and the events that took place. We'd cover the mundane as well as the heart wrenching details of raising kids and trying to build young marriages.

She lived in Minnesota and I in California, and through this constant exchange of letters we were always up to the minute on each other's lives. When we would be able to see one another face to face during our visit to Mn or her family's to Ca, we would be able to pick up our relationships as if we had just seen one another the day before.

Shirley and I saved one an other's letters for years and had boxes and boxes of them. I finally cleaned house one day and threw them out. She did the same as she scaled down over the years. What I wouldn't give for those early letters now that my kids are grown and have kids of their own, and my beloved sister has passed away.

Our letter writing served a bigger purpose than keeping us close, though. Both of us found that writing about what was bothering us gave us a clarity and often helped us find the solutions to the things that were troubling us. If not, then the feedback the other gave was the vehicle from which came the clarity we were seeking through our sharing. Thus was born my love for writing, but also my respect for the written word and it's value as an object of shining light into the dark places we are struggling to get out of.

With the advent of computers and word processors, we are now able to write and password protect our thoughts here without fear of someone finding and reading what we write. There is a freedom in that privacy. We don't have to worry about spelling or grammar. We don't have to worry about what we say. Our writings are as private as are our thoughts. What a gift these computers are to us.

I have one journal that I have kept for many years. I started it when my youngest child was graduating from high school and I was facing the inevitable empty nest syndrome. I have continued to write, not always regularly, but constantly enough to draw a picture of me and my family, our growth and the changes that took place. It's like a movie camera into my soul as it records my highs and my lows, and the important events we all shared. I started that particular journal in 1989. The daughter that was graduating high school was 18 then, and is now turning 37 at the end of March. I wrote it with the thought in mind that my children would all read it one day. I see it as a legacy of my love for them. I hope that they share it, and copy it so they all have one of their own. I've filled an entire hard cover book, you've seen the kind I mean. You can buy them anywhere, books with hard covers and empty pages just waiting for us to fill them. I'm about to buy and begin a new one to record these golden years. That will be book three in the "Life of Mary" trilogy.

I strongly urge you all to consider journaling. Just start writing. Don't worry about spelling or grammar or punctuation. Just put down words and thoughts. Nobody is going to proof read it, and as long as you know what you mean, that's all that matters. You'll be surprised what comes out, and what a tremendous outlet it will become. Psychiatrists highly recommend journaling to their patients. It keeps us from thinking in circles as we all tend to do when we are troubled. Do give it a try. I think once you begin, you won't stop.

Until next time, happy journaling!!

Mary