Keeping a Journal: My Safe Place

I feel like journaling is something that is slowly becoming a forgotten habit. I do not know many other people who keep some sort of journal or diary other than my Mom. However, I do also think that journaling, or keeping a diary (its basically the same thing), is something that some people may be slightly embarrassed about or is simply something they would rather keep private. Wishing for privacy is understandable, if anyone read my journal I think I might actually want feed myself to the alligator that lives in the pond next to my freshman dorm. Even though I do not want other people reading my journal, does not mean I keep the fact that I keep one private.

When people see that I have a journal the response is almost always the same: a laugh in my face, a joke about it being something only middle school girls do, or they ask if they can read it. Sometimes all three! Every now and then I get slightly embarrassed because it is something I am so passionate about and most other people think it quite silly. Journaling is my outlet, it keeps me sane. No matter how many people tease me, I do not plan to stop until the last days of my life.

I have been keeping a journal since I was in elementary school and my Mom has been journaling ever since she got pregnant with my older brother. My mom and I are very similar in the way that we both really enjoy any sort of paper products (sorry to all huge environmentalists out there!). Whether it is cute little notepads, stationary, notebooks, sketchbooks, planners... we are all over it. We have found ourselves, on more than one occasion, giving into buying cute journals we come across and adding it to the pile of empty notebooks on our bookshelves.

Since my mom and I have been journalling for so long, we have both started to acquire quite a hefty pile of used journals. I am currently working on my thirteenth journal and she her seventeenth. Technically I am on my fourteenth, because my first journal is numbered as zero. My mom unearthed it not long ago while going through some of our belongings and declared it as my first journal. I had not even known it existed, turns out my love of journalling started much younger than I had originally known! I wonder all the time what we will one day do with such piles of journals. My Moms response is to give them to the Smithsonian, maybe we will become famous for recording history through our writing! Watch out world, the Anne Franks of the modern world are coming at yah!

More than anything else, writing is an outlet for me so I do not lose my mind. There is stuff in those journals I am not sure I have ever told anyone before. Not only are we recording our personal lives to reflect on later, but we are recording history. Things will be so different in five, ten, and twenty years. I want to be able to remember all of my thoughts and feelings and memories.

So make fun of me if you will, but I will never stop writing. After all, my love for writing in my journal is what brought me here.

My journal collection

My Mom's journal collection (accompanied by our precious yorkie, Trixie)

P.S. Keep a look out every Thursday for a new post about my journals! For the next thirteen weeks I am planning a throwback Thursday where I share about a specific entry from each one. I am excited to share my journal history with you all!

xoxo, tay