Now That's My Kind of Journaling

 I recently bought this black book. This book is intended to get me to write more often. Whether that writing be creative or mechanical. 

When I was a kid I used to keep this journal. I didn't have a reason for the journal at all. I would share my journal with my mom and dad all the time. Often the pages would be filled with stories about them or my brothers. Most of the time I made useless lists - like a list of the same word over and over again. I never had to write sentences on the board at school so I made lists in my journal. It's a bit odd and unsettling to think of a nine year old voluntarily writing lines in a notebook... but I did. 

As I got older I wrote journals for myself. I would chronicle the days events in them - usually about how angry or happy Anthony made me that day. I literally have four full notebooks for junior high school full of stories about Anthony and I. Probably things like.. "Today after first period Anthony walked me to my next class and he put a note in my pocket. Oh my gosh it was so cool! Then he kissed me on the cheek...." These journals are so ridiculously boring but at that time it was my creative expression I guess. 

At some point I coerced Anthony into sharing a "couple journal" with me. I decorated it with pictures of us and we'd each fill out half of a two page spread as often as we could. If you saw that journal you would think.. "How did they work out?" Anthony's pages are full of stupid photos clipped out of magazines that he thought I would think were funny. My pages are lyrics of songs that made me think of him. He told me later that he hated it when I would do that because WHO WANTS TO HEAR LYRICS THAT SOMEONE ELSE WROTE? 

I kept a journal of poems I wrote too. I filled that one and never started another one.

So this black book that I bought is blank. I've written in one page and that page isn't even finished yet. It's been two weeks of carrying it back and forth from home to work and putting it on my bedside table when I get home. I even took it on the last two trips we went on. And yet I have nothing to say. How can I have nothing to say? I've been thinking about this a lot but tonight I found my answer in this photo.

I don't feel that I have the ability to draw in any awe inspiring way. The only art I can proudly create is with a ruler or a camera. I like to color code and organize. I make lists for fun people. That. to me. is art. Today at work I won the (fake) award for "Most colorful spreadsheet" and beamed with pride. People make my day when they tell me that my house is clean and organized. Computers are my friend. Everything is on a grid. 

Not to mention the fact that I have an overwhelming obsession with people reading my journals. I specifically remember reading excerpts of my early journals to my parents and cousins, my junior high journals were shared with my best friend Andie on many occasions, the couple journal was shared with Anthony and my poem journal's contents littered English assignments for years. I think that you few readers who do read my blog are the reason why I journal today. But I do it on the internet instead of on paper.

So maybe that black book will stay empty. But I hope I keep carrying it around.

Kels