Journaling: What a Gift

Each year on this day Doug sits down and reflects on the year past. He captures his thoughts in his one journal entry of the year. Just one, today, preserved.

I've been keeping a journal since my tween years, when I knew four things about myself: I would never get married (I tried anyway); I would never have kids (I'm the best eccentric aunt); I would live in an apartment (I'm baaack!); and I would be a journalist (well, writing and teaching will have to do).

Now, my journal takes the twice monthly form of a letter to a friend. We have for many decades corresponded faithfully. What I tell him is my record of my life and reflection on it. It's all stored electronically these days (with backup) but I have a storage unit near full of boxes of hard copy journals dating back to the 60s.

I do it to confront an issue or capture an experience. Maybe for someone in the family down the road to understand us all a little bit better.

I had a coworker who wrote brief comments in his day planner about important events in his life and those of his family as a form of journaling. Another who writes notations in her cookbooks about when and why she made a recipe --- someone's birthday, a wedding, other significant turning points...

When my mother's memory started to fail, evolving eventually into dementia and Alzheimer's, she started keeping a "notebook," (she would never have called it a journal) to recall what she did each day. She'd note the date, the weather, her schedule for the day. It sat open next to her place at the kitchen table, always faithfully at her side. We kids started to leave her notes in it as well. If we stopped by and she wasn't there, we'd leave a note. Hidden somewhere in the future pages we'd write "I love you," for her to find as she turned the pages on new days.

I have all of her notebooks but I haven't read them yet. I'm curious about the thoughts that she might have included beyond her daily activities but I'm scared to perhaps witness her decline captured among those pages as well.

Mom's been lost to Alzheimer's for 12 years now and my dad died too young. There's so much about them and our family history that we'll never know because we have no one to ask.

It doesn't really matter whether you think of yourself as a journal writer or how often or faithful you are to the task. It doesn't matter why you do it --- to preserve family history, wrestle your way privately through some personal challenge, make notes to yourself for future use... There are no rules, no requirements. You're the writer, the editor, the publisher. You decide.

What matters is that someday someone will be able to touch your words. Absorb them and the stories and lessons they tell. Imagine opening up your long gone great grandmother's cookbook to find her handwritten notes. What a gift.


Share your stories in the comments section below.

"Still Foolin' 'Em" - Billy Crystal's take on turn 65

"Where I've Been, Where I'm Going, and Where the Hell Are My Keys?" is the subtitle of Billy Crystal's 2013 book on turning 65.

It opens as if he's channeling me. Same questions, same thoughts, same fears, same frustrations, same aches and pains. No credit. I'd sue but I'm pretty sure it's just happening to all of us.

It's wonderful to know an artist's performing style so well that while reading his words, I hear his vocal inflections and imagine him acting it out for me --- reading it aloud to me.

It's an entertaining read and moves about as fast as Crystal does on stage. The only problem: I'm in bed with a book rather than Crystal himself...oh, that's right, he's happily married. ugh.



"Still Foolin' 'Em: Where I've Been, Where I'm Going, and Where the Hell Are My Keys?," published by Henry Holt, 2013



Share your thoughts in the comments section below.

Standing in the middle of the road

I’m standing in the middle of the road.

A glamorous convertible filled with 20-somethings pumping out the party music and confetti races up the hill and past me unaware, invincible, carefree.

In the other lane toddles a pristine late model Cadillac tank. Behind the wheel is a shrinking and perfectly coiffed elderly couple. Their car crests the hill and slowly begins its descent.

 And here I stand caught between and looking both ways.

I’m told I’m a baby boomer, a member of the sandwich generation, not yet a senior and no way I’m a tweener, GenX or millennial.

Sixty is the new 40, but I’m only 26. That’s such a relief!

 Well, actually I’m 26  trapped somehow in a 60-year-old’s body.

No body switching movies plots. Twenty-six was just such a productive, creative, nurturing year that I choose to stay there even though my body did not.

In recent years, the aches and pains of this body, which has not aged as gracefully as I had intended, has caught up with me. Falls with broken bones and sprains. Cancer, surgeries and chemotherapy.

I am starting to admit that I am aging.

I am no longer invincible but vulnerable.

When we moved to a home that was suppose to be further down the road to retirement, I found myself slumping under the weight of the high anxiety my fears about aging, retirement, uselessness, and surrender were causing. (Every time I use the words “high anxiety” I start humming Mel Brook’s song from the movie of the same name.)

High anxiety ... it's always the same;

High anxiety ... it's you that I blame.

It's very clear to me I've got to give in.

High anxiety: you win. ©

At the same time, we were plotting “semi-retirement.” Working less in our career fields and making more time to enjoy our summers on the lake, volunteering, and travel. Yet, semi-retirement made me wonder if I was too outdated to continue to hold my own with the youngsters in my field. Anything left in me to contribute?

All of the economic fears came crashing down around my head as well. Are our savings enough? How do we ensure we can cover all of the health issues that we are starting to confront?

And then of course, what if one of us loses the other? What are all of the overwhelming tasks and commitments that we’ll have to muddle through alone?

And there’s nothing like grandchildren to jar one’s perspective about her age and fading place in the world.

Overwhelmed with me yet?

And then someone jolted me with “You’ve got 30-40 years left.”

“Well,” I thought, “That’s my adult life so far.” Heck, that’s lots of time. (Blatant but comforting denial).

My father died at 61 and I’ve always said that was way too young. I’m not even there yet.

Plenty of time to leave the old paths behind and head out in new directions --- professionally as well personally.

Plenty of time to address the gaps or flaws in the rest of my life plan.

And waaaaaaaaaaay too much time to surrender to some stereotypical image of an old lady.

While I’ll admit that I shouldn’t be standing in the middle of the road in the first place, I think I’ll stay right here, for a while anyway, taking all the risks and waving happily to all who cruise by.

© 1977 HIGH ANXIETY Mel Brook, arranged by John Morris

I know I'm not alone. Share your stories in the comments section below.