Wednesday, August 12, 2009

A history of how Jennifer journals

I went digging for a missing photo album today. Still haven't found it, but I got into my old footlocker while searching and discovered Memory Central. Journals dating back to junior high school. Various memorabilia and worthless pack rat type stuff from things I did in high school. I flipped through a journal I had to keep while I was attending Arkansas Governor's School during the summer of 1993 and WOW. I don't remember half of what I wrote about. I barely remembered who I was talking about most of the time. And it was an assignment, so my teacher was reading all this mess. I'm embarrassed now, 16 (holy crap, 16!) years later.

When I was in junior high, we had a gifted and talented program (TAG) and the teacher was awesome. Ms. J is hands down the best teacher I ever had. She required that we keep a journal and we had to turn it in every week or something like that. She'd read it, make comments, give it back. I had never kept a journal or diary before, but I loved it. I have one small and two huge notebooks worth of journals from TAG. I've looked at them in the past few years, and it's embarrassing too. I suppose most adults are pretty embarrassed by their adolescence if they're totally honest about it.

After that, I kept journals off and on for years. When I was about 22 or so, I discovered online journalling. I feel really, really old saying that this was before anyone ever called them blogs. I actually learned a little html making my journal online. I still have access to all of it, but decided a long time ago that all of it is best buried in the deepest corners of the www. Not a pretty time in my life. I did have my first negative journal experience then though. A friend of mine found my journal online, I don't know how, and she read it. She was not really happy about some things I said about her. I was used to paper journals I could hide away and be completely honest in. Being online is a bit different. I've learned to never say something you don't want someone to see. Of course, now it's easier for me to make stuff private online... but I'm still really careful.

I've kept a blog on myspace. I journalled on cafemom a lot. I don't write paper journals anymore because it's easier for me to keep my husband from snooping online. Not that I'm keeping stuff from him, but you know...

I'm usually a lot happier when I can empty my head out. I don't do it much lately and I'm very, well, not happy. I never get on myspace anymore. I feel that I have to be extra careful on cafemom because there are some hateful, ugly women out there and I'm not into all that drama. So I think I'll use this space more. And maybe I'll be more likely to work on my 101 list too. I guess this is the next phase in my journalling life - a real blog.

And in 10 years, I'll look back at this and be embarrassed all over again. =)

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