I Love Keeping a Journal

Keeping a journal, or a diary, or anything you'd call it, is sooo important to me.

Even if I don't make entries every single day. Even if there's no possible way I can neatly encapsulate every significant or relevant moment. Even if it seems bleak and pointless while I'm narrating them. Even if it feels tedious and like yet another chore taking up my time and energy. Having that to look back to in the future is priceless.

I'm not a person with outstanding memory (I probably exchanged it for other traits and skills), but I do get nostalgic from time to time. Given that, in the greater scheme of things, everything is intertwined, and the past matters. Incredibly so. It can be marvelous for me to witness how everything eventually fits together or unlocks doors to more.

And if you knew me well, you'd believe that it doesn't necessarily have to do with money and fame for it to be amazing to me (although those can be impressively great too). It's just the miracle of everything, how astonishing and wonderful life can be. It is pure meaning.

Something not everyone knows or is aware of is that many of us legitimately suffer if we don't weave the events of our lives into stories. We lose purpose, direction, and will. We miss out on the lessons, too. And fail to see the big picture or even have a compass. Storytelling is not only entertaining, it keeps you sane.

Maybe there are characters that come in that you wish never had. Characters that leave that you wish would have stayed. Or characters that weren't there enough. And it makes you want to rip out those pages with them on them because you don't want to remember them. Maybe you don't even want them to have a place there, in the book that's yours. But they do, at one point it was their story too. Eventually, you come to terms with it and can look back at it to see how, if nothing else, they added some spice.

And maybe there is still plenty that doesn't make much or any sense. That has you wondering, "What in the world?" And it's taking up space without any seeming justification. You might ultimately find out that it does... or that it doesn't. But such is life and sometimes there's fluff and fillers. Not everything will advance the main plot and not all the plot holes are patched. The foreshadowing can be an astounding or a disappointing reveal. And the twists can be indescribably blissful or utterly devastating.

But those incredible bits that you'll treasure forever? They're worth the wait. Nobody can take that from you. And by keeping a journal, you can anchor them and be led back to them, vaguely or vividly reliving them. How magical is that? The ordinary may be extraordinary after all. Literally legendary.

It's also bewildering to think of all the times different lives have paralleled each other until finally crossing. And I don't mean simply viewing or meeting, I mean on the different levels that there are and that they carry. We contain so much. And oh, such obliviousness. It is frustrating.

I just sometimes wish I could do more of it, but soon that will be the case. Some of my biggest regrets still include not having much or anything to remember something or someone by. Yet, who knows? Maybe somebody else kept a better record and I'll stumble upon them and we'll trade!

You can be sure, though, that I'm awfully sentimental and I'm holding on...
It's a familiarity I'd rather never lose...