Is It Hard To Keep A Journal?

I've mentioned the fact that I've kept a personal journal spanning more than ten years. A friend asked me if it was difficult, making all those entries. Let me address that question.

In one sense, it wasn't difficult at all. I'm sure somewhere, there's a blithe answer about it not being difficult to write one entry at a time. That's the way it works, of course. You don't write ten years worth at once. You write one single entry. The way I do it, a single entry usually covers a single topic.

When I first started, the entries were autobiographical. Much to do made up of where I went in a day, what I did, who I saw, etc. Looking back on them, they seem very clinical. There's value in those entries, though; much of the stuff I mention I would have lost to the fog of memory long ago, if it wasn't scribed into a computer file.

Gradually, I moved into a more emotion-concerned style. It mirrored a development in my own personal feelings about issues. Instead of merely reporting what happened, I started to have thoughts or reflections. Eventually, it became promises or outrages.

Was it hard to write? I already mentioned it was easy, so this is the time when I say it was difficult. Putting my emotions down on paper (or digital bits) was hard. It turned out I had to acually think about things before I could write about them. I needed to be able to form ideas up enough to at least get them out of my head, if not resolved. It needed to be coherant on paper, so that in the future, I'd be able to understand what I was feeling. That level of descriptive writing is hard, especially because you don't know what to include.

Is it hard? It was a particular brand of emotional "squeezing" I wasn't used to. Too often, whatever large problems I thought I was suffering from tended to feel a lot smaller after I'd bothered to write them out. They tended to sound like typical adolescent problems, which it turns out they were. You can imagine my brow furrowing in frustration after spending a while typing, only to find THAT out.

It's all completely worth it, of course. I don't keep the old entries in my standard bedside reading, but once or twice a year, it's fun to bring them out. It also allows me to see how close I am to repeating my mistakes. Those who do not understand history are doomed to repeat it, but it's amusing to see myself trapped in cycles. Insulated by hindsight, naturally.