dear diary...i mean journal

I was asked by an anonymous follower of my blog to quote, write more, end quote. I think he's just bored...considering a TRUE follower would reveal his identity by actually signing up. At any rate...

I guess I generally think that I have to have some pressing pondering in order to write. A plan...a purpose... or a punch line. Writing has never been my forte, so writing on a whim doesn't always work out for me. I'll probably even edit this a few times.

One writing endeavor I'm pretty good at is journaling. I've been journaling for years, ever since I was like 7, when got my very first diary. If I recall, it had Garfield on it. It also had a lock, to keep out my nosy sisters and brother...I couldn't have them reading about my deepest darkest secrets! Like how I was soooo mad that I missed "Doughnuts for Dads" in 3rd grade because I was sick. I was seriously distraught about that. Anyway, I wrote probably a handful of entries and totally lost the key. So many childhood thoughts...trapped.

I think I resumed writing in a journal as soon as I felt old enough to call it "journaling" instead of "writing in my diary." I've gone through so many phases of this common practice. From reporting my daily activities (captivating ones like..."Dear Diary, Today I went to the candy store with my sister. She's so annoying. We bought Mambos.") ...to exploring my writing style (at one point, I was convinced that someone would turn it into a memoir, so I made sure to sound really existential)...to figuratively vomiting all of my feelings onto the page (oh the ways one can say "hate"). All had their use, I suppose. But I think there was something missing in the process.

Lately, I've been using writing more therapeutically. I know that reference probably makes some people gag (me too, a little). Sometimes I hate when I suggest to clients that they journal. It's kind of like replying "What do YOU think it means?" to the question "So what do you think?" It seems like a cop-out...an easy answer to a really hard question. Unfortunately, like all classic therapeutic tools and interventions, they're classics for a reason. We, ourselves, have to figure things out. And writing DOES help.

I know that a lot of people use writing and journaling as a therapy. But I assert that we need to approach it in the different way. While my figurative vomiting had some cathartic effect, it kind of just emptied me. I wasn't filling myself with anything new. And actually, those awful feelings that I wrote down probably never left me. They peeked out, screamed, and retreated back, deep within me and probably festered (I'm picturing this like "Alien."). I think putting time and thought into our writing...really working things out as we write...and allowing our words to really sink in to our hearts and minds is way more therapeutic than spilling everything on the page. Yes, we might feel better for a minute; but most likely, we'll feel empty afterwards. When done thoughtfully, I believe writing can really connect parts of us that are usually disconnected. Our prose, in whatever form, can become a road map to ourselves.

So even though I still write like I talk...with fragments...with hip-kid/hep-cat vernacular (OK, I obviously don't even know what that is anymore)...and with ellipses... I'm trying more and more to really be thoughtful about what I write--even when I think no one will read it.