Who journals? (Emo rant. Beware. Other emo rants welcome!)

[acd]

Do you ever go back and read your journals months or years later? I've recently done this and for the first time ever, I had this strange feeling. It felt like I was reading a novel about a character who was me, but wasn't. Someone else said it in another thread, but I felt like 'a spectator in my own life.'

The journal was filled with my experiences and relationship with one particular person. It was strange, I realized after reading it why I loved that person so much, and then page by page I read on as things began to deteriorate. It left me with the most melancholy feeling, but at the same time there was something cathartic about it.. I realized I dropped the anger I felt for this person and I was left with this raw understanding of us.

Well, does anyone else have anything they've learned through journaling? Learned about yourself or your relationships or anything else?

 

[Zero Angel]

I will sometimes write something that I wrote in a certain state of mind, and then be hesitant to go back and read it several months later, because it sounds like it was written by someone who is excessively emotional.

I used to do lots of journaling -- some of them were introspections on the various natures of things. There would be in times when I would be ashamed of my writings, believing them lacking certain fundamentals, and deleting them -- only to find out later on that my various reflections on things were in accord with things discovered through analysis OF the fundamental and or empirical evidence which my writings lacked. And though written in an abstract tone, they had a logic which could be connected with cause and effect.

 

[acd]

Thanks for replying, Zero. Your posts are so well thought out.
I've been ashamed and terrified of things I've written. In fact, this last journal I went and read was scary and very sad. I was such a lost little girl (of 21! haha) when I wrote it. I feel I've learned so much about life in a few years since, but not nearly enough yet.

 

[Entyqua]

I can relate, I look back to my old journals and it seems more like some one else's life not mine. I had such a huge change in myself from the times of the writings to now...mine go back years though...I stopped journaling a long time ago. Who i was, and who I am now are two people, yet the same torn apart from each other.

 

[Grey Wolf]

I know what you guys mean. Looking back and thinking and reading of the things I once did and even the people I once liked, I realise I was kinda stupid and also realised that in the future, I would probably also look back at this moment and think that I was being stupid

 

[sunbeanee]

Do you ever wish you could write about more than just FEELINGS all the time???

 

[arbygil]

Actually, I like my paper journals. I don't visit my online journals much, but my journaling experiences started waaay back - I was eight! I still have those older journals, so it's pretty fun to go back and read those. The high school journals were just a big stupid angst fest (or I was journaling about my favorite TV shows).

 

[acd]

Do you ever wish you could write about more than just FEELINGS all the time???

Happens sometimes. Sometimes I'll be somewhere eavesdropping on an interesting and insightful conversation, transcribing everything that is being said.. Or I'll just write interesting facts I learned.. but yeah when I journal it's mostly about feelings.. Which makes sense, seeing as how my thoughts and actions are usually motivated by emotions.

 

[Cuddle Donor]

Eh kinda. I wouldn't call it a journal since I don't do it periodically, and it covers more than just fleeting thoughts. I basically do it to force myself organise thoughts on topics that I think about, and to keep a record of it in case I want to come back to it later. Hardly any of it is about 'feelings' actually. Most if it is just theories and shitty attempts to analyse things. Some end up being essays. I also document a few dreams.

 

[KingOfSpades]

Yea I save snippets of stuff I wrote down many years ago in a variety of places...some written journals, some online journals and on and on.

It's definitely weird to read stuff you wrote so many years ago....you wonder how much of you is the same and how much of you has changed.

i feel like my non-journal writing has gotten better just over time, but when i read my journals i feel there is something static about the voice that's writing it at times. my journal writing mostly relates to emotional states and how i felt about something. maybe that voice is always the same for some reason?

i can't open up my longest journal at the moment becuase my microsoft office has expired ah well. stupid microsoft.

 

[PoetOfDreams]

I read some of my blog entries a year back or so.... and they have the same feelings as now. Maybe I haven't grown much over the year. *shrugs*

 

[sleepycloud]

I prefer my more timeless insights. If I'm over it, I would prefer to integrate that scribbly phase of my life out of recurrence, however I sometimes have a startling way of revitalising my cringe-worthy past by re-scrabbling my emotional geekiness (since my blog is public), especially once I've re-worked my understanding of something the same way you would squeeze the cabbage patch baby version of yourself only to realise you're blessing the vegies. After a good stamp of the brow, it's refreshing to reboot obsolete dream diaries. I'm always striving for that breath of fresh air and my journals are the exhalation of my..ooh, steammeh nucleur power plant of an unscrewed head cap. :hat: I'm sorry, although it makes sense to me.