Once upon a time, I was married. We stayed married for 10 years in the way that some people should not. With all of the traumas, flaws, and bad habits we’d each accumulated in our 21 years, which is how old we were when he and I tied the proverbial knot, we never should have gotten married. Hindsight is 20-20.
But one magical, good thing came from us splitting back in 2009: I started going to counseling. Through the walls of my midwestern stubborness, I realized that the ending of that 10-year relationship (while I was in the middle of working towards my master’s degree) was too much for me to handle on my own. One of the first counseling homework assignments I was given then was to begin tracking my thoughts in a journal.
I was skeptical and a little resistant, but one thing I was generally good at was being a student. So I did my homework.
It’s been 16 years since I went to my first counseling session. I was 31 years old. That session was loooooooong overdue, but I’m glad I didn’t further delay it. I joke that I have the emotional intelligence of a 16-year-old, since it’s been that long since I first began my journey of personal improvement.
And connected to that first session, today I’ll begin my 16th journal in 16 years today. I’m still doing my homework.
Whenever I look back through any of my journals, it’s powerful to think of how much has happened. Each journal has its own flavor: some I’ve handmade, some I bought because they were pretty, some I bought to support the art museum where I bought them from, some I was gifted. Both the last one (the blue and white one) and the new one (pretty, iridescent lemons) are purchases. Designs I thought were pretty, along with well-constructed books.
My story in St. Pete isn’t quite closed yet. But it’s closing. It will be a part of this next journal as I transition to a new phase in my life. As I’m in the process of transitioning…
These 16 years of journals hold expressions of joy, grief, loved ones, loved ones gone, loved ones who will be gone sooner than I’d like.
I know folks don’t like unsolicited advice any more than I do, but I do offer this: Journaling has been one of the most important tools in my personal growth of me being able to identify how I’m feeling, my emotional intelligence, and processing through challenging decisions or problems in my life. I highly recommend making it a part of your daily or weekly practice. And I highly recommend using pen and paper if that’s accessible to you.
Closing Out
Finishing this journal now seems timely. While I’m still in a bit of limbo with selling my house and moving, my time in St. Pete is winding down. And certain other things are as well. Finishing this journal feels important to me, as finishing every past journal has.
I don’t often flip back through older journals, and I’ve sometimes thought about what I should do with them. Tossing them just doesn’t feel right, so I keep packing them up across the different places I live to unpack them for a new habitat on a bookshelf. They all feel important.
Do you have something like that in your life? If not a journal, something that you will take with you no matter where you move or go?