BellaOnline Forums Beauty and Self Journals Old Journals

Did anyone write journals when they were in elementary, middle, and/or high school? I had an elementary diary but something happened to it. I still have my high school journal. I recorded the date of my first kiss with my first love :D, the day I started to notice him, etc. I get all warm and fuzzy inside when I read that stuff. The other things made me mad but I had good memories reading the past. How do you feel when you read your old entries from an old journal?

I still have all my old journals and they are very interesting to read through sometimes. Sometimes it is embarrassing to think about the things that seemed SO important to me at the time. But I'd never throw them away! :-)

I have a housekeeping journal that my grandmother kept for a number of years. It mainly was a penny-by-penny account of the money she spent every day. She started it in the 1890's when she was just married in Germany, and it is interesting to see what they had for dinner every day, and how few other things she ever bought. She would get a new blouse and skirt once a year before buying a railroad ticket and not entering anything for a couple of weeks. I guess she was visiting her folks back in the home village then. After about 6 years of entries she bought 2 steamship tickets, and a month or so later the next entry was headed "AMERIKA!" But the very next page was in English as she tried to learn the new language. My father was born within the year and her entries became more sporadic, then when his brother was born they stopped altogether.
It is amazing how much you can learn from a simple list of expenses!

Claybird, that's cool you have that journal. Especially since the date is in the 1890's. Speaking of my first love, he called me yesterday and said he's coming to California to visit me! I feel like that same high school girl again hehe. We've kept in touch alot since high school but I always get excited when I see him.

I'm amazed when I look back through my old journals about the things I was interested in at the time. Also, I have some journals that are more diary-like. I was astounded reading through an entry from 30 years ago and comparing it to what my daily life is like today. It was like comparing myself at 29 and 59. I've really grown as a person and it was so self-affirming to see that.

Yeah I have some journals from the 70's and it was like every little thing set me off and was an emotional upheaval back then. Of course I was a teenager and wanted to move far away and start another life back in those days. But there was a lot of deep poetry in those pages too. I'm so glad I kept those journals. They are definitely treasures from the past!

I wish I had kept my journals from the past. My ex husband found them and read them, and after that I couldnt bear the thought that my private thoughts were out there for someone to read so I destroyed them all. Even now I have a problem journaling.

I have 7 journals from 7 years in a row from the years right after my marriage. I was very young. I re-read as much as I could of them. But it was depressing. When I was young I apparently thought a journal was to write down all the things that bothered me. All I did was nag and complain. It shocked me so much that I started another journal... a garden journal. I would sit on my back patio and just log down everything I saw. The trees, the birds... I would describe them in detail. I still get a calm feeling when I read that one.
I try to remember that journals are our deepest thoughts. Perhaps I shouldn't be so hard on that young girl that was trying to figure out how to be a wife and a mother, holding down her first job, and moving into a world away from her parents.
And maybe.. just maybe.. those journals are apart of the path that helped me become who I am today. Maybe they served the purpose they were meant to serve
I don't write a journal now. For some reason I have lost all desire to do that. I do still write poetry, articles and a few songs.

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