I recently got married. Before that, my husband and I were in a committed relationship for a few years. He is my best friend. We have taken many vacations together. Our favorite spot is New York City.
On our first trip to the city in 2018, we discovered a wonderful, surprising shop. Everything was new, and extremely low priced! It reminded me of a Dollar Store.
I found a journal designed for documenting five years of your life. There are small spaces next to year markers, and you fill in what you did on that day in that year. I thought it was a great find!
At first, I was very good at keeping up with it. I recorded our daily activities during the trip. Then I forgot about the journal and moved on. It was lost in a sea of many other journals I keep.
Keeping a journal is a great way to record your life, improve your memory, and document your daily and yearly activities and accomplishments. They also help express feelings you didn’t even know you had until you wrote them down.
Sometimes, I still like to surprise my husband; strictly because I love him and want to keep him on his toes. One day, I left encouraging post-it notes on the mirror in his bathroom. Recently, on my birthday, he covered mine.
Naturally, I couldn’t leave the notes up on my mirror, though I seriously considered it. I searched for a place to keep them preserved. I looked for a sturdy journal and found the five year journal I had forgotten.
I was inspired to keep up with it once again, and interested to read my previous entries. They were all about our first trip to New York, and my husband and I enjoyed reading them together.
Journals can be helpful and therapeutic, but it was also very nice to go back and read about a time before we lived together, before we were engaged, and before we got married.
Journals don’t have to be written with the purpose of turning back time to reminisce. You can keep a journal, write things down and destroy it right after you read through it. You don’t have to show it to anyone. It helps me to decipher the feelings my words express.
Try keeping a journal for a week. Write an entry every day, no matter how short. It may help you remember your day, especially if you have problems with memory. You may also have an easier time talking to yourself than you do to other people.
Don’t think about it. Just let the words flow and read it when you’re done. You will be surprised.
I hope this advice is helpful and that you really will give it a try. Happy writing, and have a great weekend!
—SJB