I think that every little girl, whether she really uses it or not, has had a diary at one point in her life. I used to be very good at keeping mine updated. I have a small pile of notebooks filled with writing from the end of elementary school, middle school and the beginning of high school. Humiliatingly, most of my middle and early high school entries are filled with "I am so in love with so-and-so" and it's usually a guy that barely noticed me. Or if he did, he didn't say anything about it.
By late high school I had moved on to bigger and better things - uJournal! Which is no longer in existence. In college I made the switch to LiveJournal. This persisted, with a few breaks here and there, until it started creating drama in my life because someone who probably should have known better than to read it decided to anyway. Which was unfortunate because journaling has always been a good way for me to sort out my thoughts, and as I was in therapy to help me deal with depression and anxiety at the time it was an even better way to clue my therapist into what I was thinking as I was thinking it, rather than just reviewing my memories at a session.
My dear, darling Katieschmatie gave me a gorgeous leather bound journal that I do write in, but I find when I'm upset or anxious about something, or just short on time but really want to get something out, there's just no faster way of getting my thoughts down than typing. I type at over 100 words per minute when I'm not correcting my spelling or grammer, and I just can't write that fast with pen and paper no matter how hard I try. Plus, the lovely thing about an online journal is often that you can receive feedback from your friends and those who care about you (at least, I always thought that was the point of having one that others could read).
Well, I wanted to get back into writing in a journal so I made it part of my Day Zero project. I ended up rehashing my old livejournal, although keeping the entries private and after changing the name of it so as to avoid the drama that caused me to leave it in the first place. This was one of my more spontaneous goals, I ended up starting in the middle of December for no other reason then I felt like writing. While I try to carefully plan most of my goals, I'm rather glad this one happened spontaneously - writing in a journal shouldn't be planned activity, unless it's some kind of creative writing.
Keeping a daily journal has proved harder than I thought it would. Some entries go on and on because a lot has been happening or I just have a lot of thoughts running through my head. Some are very short because I didn't have much time or much to say. But it's been nice to have it again and be writing things down... my thinking process works much better when I can just get it out instead of having it running around and around in my head. Now that I'm back in the habit, I'm probably going to stay in it. I doubt I'll write daily, but there is something nice about having a place to lay out and order my thoughts, a place that I can return to if I want to review those thoughts or reassess a situation.
Despite the fact that I'm addicted to Facebook and write in a blog, I'm a surprisingly private person in many ways. That was one of the things I always loved about LiveJournal... I could do anything from public, to friends-only to custom friends to private posts. Now that I'm not seeing my therapist anymore, during which time my posts were all public, having a place where I can either share my thoughts or keep them private is nice. All the time I see people shouting out every thought they have on social media sites, things that I would probably only tell my best friends. Not me. I'm shouting it out in my diary ;) Considering some of the things I've read about others that I wish I hadn't, I think maybe more people should get into this journal thing!
By late high school I had moved on to bigger and better things - uJournal! Which is no longer in existence. In college I made the switch to LiveJournal. This persisted, with a few breaks here and there, until it started creating drama in my life because someone who probably should have known better than to read it decided to anyway. Which was unfortunate because journaling has always been a good way for me to sort out my thoughts, and as I was in therapy to help me deal with depression and anxiety at the time it was an even better way to clue my therapist into what I was thinking as I was thinking it, rather than just reviewing my memories at a session.
My dear, darling Katieschmatie gave me a gorgeous leather bound journal that I do write in, but I find when I'm upset or anxious about something, or just short on time but really want to get something out, there's just no faster way of getting my thoughts down than typing. I type at over 100 words per minute when I'm not correcting my spelling or grammer, and I just can't write that fast with pen and paper no matter how hard I try. Plus, the lovely thing about an online journal is often that you can receive feedback from your friends and those who care about you (at least, I always thought that was the point of having one that others could read).
Well, I wanted to get back into writing in a journal so I made it part of my Day Zero project. I ended up rehashing my old livejournal, although keeping the entries private and after changing the name of it so as to avoid the drama that caused me to leave it in the first place. This was one of my more spontaneous goals, I ended up starting in the middle of December for no other reason then I felt like writing. While I try to carefully plan most of my goals, I'm rather glad this one happened spontaneously - writing in a journal shouldn't be planned activity, unless it's some kind of creative writing.
Keeping a daily journal has proved harder than I thought it would. Some entries go on and on because a lot has been happening or I just have a lot of thoughts running through my head. Some are very short because I didn't have much time or much to say. But it's been nice to have it again and be writing things down... my thinking process works much better when I can just get it out instead of having it running around and around in my head. Now that I'm back in the habit, I'm probably going to stay in it. I doubt I'll write daily, but there is something nice about having a place to lay out and order my thoughts, a place that I can return to if I want to review those thoughts or reassess a situation.
Despite the fact that I'm addicted to Facebook and write in a blog, I'm a surprisingly private person in many ways. That was one of the things I always loved about LiveJournal... I could do anything from public, to friends-only to custom friends to private posts. Now that I'm not seeing my therapist anymore, during which time my posts were all public, having a place where I can either share my thoughts or keep them private is nice. All the time I see people shouting out every thought they have on social media sites, things that I would probably only tell my best friends. Not me. I'm shouting it out in my diary ;) Considering some of the things I've read about others that I wish I hadn't, I think maybe more people should get into this journal thing!
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