Home » Depression, Life, Nostalgia

Old Journals

I’m cleaning up and out some of the stuff that I have … hey, better that I do it than Dennis or someone else after the fact … and I was wondering something. Is it a good idea to just throw away old journals? Journals as in the handwritten books that I kept since I was 11? It’s not like anyone is going to want to read that dreck now. Or should I shred the pages individually? I’m at a loss as to what to do with these old books.

For the record, there’s nothing incriminating in them. Just the boring dreck of a Star Trek TNG geek who begged her parents to take her to Starbase 21 and spent her allowance on magazine with Wil Wheaton on the cover, Star Trek trading cards, and Chekov’s Enterprise. And the occasional Beatles cards or book. My journals went on like that until I was 15. Or until I had sex the first time. I think it was the loss of my virginity that caused me to turn to harder things. I got a job the next year and spent my paycheck on cigarettes and booze and hardcore things. I became a shut in, reading science text books.

Last night, I decided to throw away my old Marilyn Manson calendars from the 90s. I threw out my Foo Fighters calendars. I tossed out several things that proved my adolescent past existed. These journals (and the panties that Michelle and I tye-dyed about ten years ago) are all that remain of my past. I’m torn at whether it’s time to let the past go, or if I should hang on to these journals a little while longer.

I still keep a paper journal, though I mostly draw in it, and use it as an expensive sticker collection book. Rather than glue print outs onto the pages, I get stickers from Moo.com of my friends and loved ones. My journals have evolved from those locked one-entry-per-20-line pages to hard cover notebooks with unlined pages and Monet covers. One of my journals was made by Jess from his grandmother’s old leather sofa, and the wallpaper from his first bedroom.

These journals have seen me through abuse, cancer, surgeries, high school, college, nursing school, addictions, discovery of the web, every job I have ever held, parenthood, marriage, the loss and gaining of friends, discovery of music, more addictions, and losses. A small part of me wants to hang on to them. They are a written record of my history. But my heart knows that I cannot hang onto everything. It’s time to let go.

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7 Comments »

  • D (1 comments) said:

    Yikes…I only wish I would have started a journal way back….my thoughts on this is just pack them away…they are parts of how you have seen life. Why on earth would you toss that away. Just think in 10 years you can look back and laugh at how you thought. These journals are a psrt of you …hang on to them~

    - 24 March 2010 at 7:55 pm
  • silvergirl (43 comments) said:

    I dont keep journal nor write, because I hate to go back to my past! For me past is past or i will always remember those people who hurt me so much.. I just focus what will happen tomorrow.

    - 25 March 2010 at 4:16 am
  • Rebecca (29 comments) said:

    I really think you should pack them away because someday your kids will be absolutely fascinated to go through all that stuff and really know their mom, realize you area a real person (not just mom) I’m sure that years from now your kids will greatly appreciate reading all of that. I wish I had stuff from my mom, just to know about her day to day life and to know more about her. Maybe you don’t think about it this way cause it seems your mom is not such a good person (killed your pets? that breaks my heart) but you are a good mom and your kids will want to read your journals someday.

    - 25 March 2010 at 1:39 pm
  • John Sealander (3 comments) said:

    Keep them! You don’t need to look at them often, or even think about them. At some point ten or fifteen years down the road they will serve as a valuable reference point. I have kept some sort of journal for over 25 years. What I’ve learned from doing this is that it is a lot easier to know where you’re going if you know where you’ve been. Without a journal, it’s too easy to rationalize or make excuses. Looking back at a very old journal will tell you exactly who you are.

    - 26 March 2010 at 9:50 am
  • Cashier (3 comments) said:

    I recently threw out my journal that I’ve had for 15 years. I never wanted anyone to read it, and if something happened to me, all my innermost thoughts would be out there. I hadn’t written in it for about a year, so I decided it was time for it to go and I shredded the whole thing.

    - 31 March 2010 at 4:16 pm
  • Shannon (1 comments) said:

    I'm throwing out old journals now. Some of it was silly and random statements and what I was doing in the present moment-like watching Star Trek TNG, yeah me too! But I also wrote a lot of deeper stuff as I got older. Some of it I shredded but I simply can't spend time on about a dozen or more notebooks and small journal books so I am just throwing them in the trash. My last name is not in them. No one would know who I really am. And I know people write about weird stuff i could never imagine. If you feel the need to throw them out-go ahead. I am reading a book about getting rid of clutter and it is having amazing results in just the two days i have started reading it. I don't know how it has turned out for you being this an old post. It's a litle sad to part with these items but in the long run it is also letting go and moving on in life. We change and when I hit my thirties, I have gone through some amazing changes in my outlook. I think moving on with newer things in life will help.

    - 1 July 2011 at 1:22 am
  • Chrétienne (31 comments) (author) said:

    I don't mind comments on older posts; I love getting feedback. If I didn't I know how to close comments, so no worries. :)

    The journals that I tossed were the ones written in pink ink with unrealistic goals of marrying Wil Wheaton and traveling in a starship solving mysteries. Sure, they were entertaining, but I had no real problems back then, and I wanted to leave something that my children could benefit from some day. I feel that is overcoming obstacles, such as being a loner in high school and problems I faced in college and with my illnesses. *Those* journals are safely locked away in a trunk in my closet for the day that my daughter expresses that she wants to start a journal of her own.

    - 1 July 2011 at 10:28 pm