The First Word #10: Journals Are This Girl’s Best Friend

I haven’t done much genealogical research lately. What I have been doing is changing my life situation from being a stay-at-home mom to having a full-time out-of-the-house job. So I have not had very much to write about lately.

However, I have been journaling a lot lately. These changes have brought up a lot of things for me to sort through. I have found journaling helpful in the past and have kept a semi-consistent journal for 12 years now (...good grief, has it really been that long?)

Keeping a journal is therapeutic. I can put on paper the things that are bothering me and get them out of my head. If there has been some sort of an event that I don’t understand or that is upsetting, I can write about it and then sleep well at night because it’s no longer churning in my mind. I also use my journal when things are going well and I want to remember how good I am feeling about something.

Journals are especially good for writing down special events, such as things my kids have accomplished, or a memorable trip, or a visit with someone. Writing down your thoughts, experiences, hopes, memories, and frustrations can be an excellent way of breaking your writer’s block. It can be a starting point for larger pieces. A journal can be a little snapshot or a preview of a larger article. I often go back to my journal for an article idea.

A journal will also be a treasure for a great-grandchild to read someday. Or they may be confused if they read my journals, I don’t know.

Here’s an excerpt from 3 October 1996 when I was still in college studying art: “I’m really looking forward to graduation. Only 7 more months then I’ll be able to do what I want to do…” And this one from 10 April 1997: “I’m going to name my next cat Gunther.” But also I wrote on 27 October 1997: “Two weeks ago we went to Abilene, KS for Seth’s grandpa’s 80th birthday. It was a surprise party. It was very fun. He was definitely surprised! It was also neat to meet some of Seth’s family that I hadn’t met yet…”

So I’ve written about my thoughts for the future, ideas about cat-naming, and about a special event related to an ancestor. These items are fun for me to read and will be even more fun for my descendants.

I don’t know about you, but it seems that my ancestors never wrote anything down. I don’t even have a letter, a Bible record or a grocery list from one of my ancestors. Oh how I wish just one person had kept a journal! I long to read about their thoughts, ideas, hopes for the future, what their kids were doing, their struggles in parenthood, in life. I would love to be swept away with visions of pioneer life of my ancestors, of the hazards of working on a farm, of falling in love and getting married.

It is one thing to learn about our ancestors, find the names and dates and fill in a chart. We can even flesh out some of their lives and personalities through extensive research, but we won’t ever know what they were really thinking and living if we don’t have any written accounts of their own... Thoughts and ideas right from their own heads and left on paper for the rest of us to find and read.

I have talked to my kids about keeping journals of their own. Even 7-year-old Ethan writes in one once in a while! They are still young. Ethan only learned to read and write last year. However, I’m planting the seeds in their mind that a journal is a good idea and therefore might be something they do in their future.

I think it is probably too late for me to find any journals or letters from my ancestors. I have asked just about every living relative I know if they know of any and the answer is always “no.” However, I can leave a journal for my kids and grandchildren and great-grandchildren to puzzle over after I’ve left this earth. More importantly are the benefits I gain from journaling right now while I’m still alive: mental health and writing ideas.