Cleaning.. and as usual with cleaning things pop into my mind that I have to stop what I am doing to blog about it. (as usual, forgive the bad punctuation with my contractions, lowercase "I" etc.. I just dont feel like bothering with fixing them lol)
What is now my blog, was once my journal. however, my journals are MUCH more private for the most part. I was putting some books away today when i came across the last journal i started back when i lived in Florida. I remember the day too. It was a night after school, I went to the local barnes and noble and saw this nice journal with a ring binder (i love by the way) and it has the serenity prayer on it. I had only written a few pages. I didnt get too far because then I was starting nursing school and got very busy. Soon after (or maybe around the same time) I started blogging to release some of this extra energy I had.
So today I read my entry from that journal. about 5 pages. It made me start to think about all my other journals i have.. a box full of them.. made me think about whipping those out and start reading. there are some really good times in those journals... my first "love", stories about what i did with my friends, other crushes, my pets lol.. then as i became a teenager.. typical stuff a teenager would write about. some of it you WISH you could forget! and then there is the pages that are just downright sad and as you are reading, it comes back to you.. whatever that it may be. and you sort of relive those feelings again, or you think to your 28 year old self "what the f*ck?" it is almost as if that is a time that was so long ago you cant believe you had gone through that experience. Sometimes I wish my 28 year old self could have been a friend to me when I was that young. For the most part, I did very well. people would often tell me I acted mature for my age. and I did. I didnt have much of a choice either being exposed to certain things as a younger kid, worrying about things a kid shouldnt have to. The problem was is my ears were big and where adults were talking, I was listening! :)
As a teenager, those were some years where as most teenagers, I went through some struggles and the people I learned I coudl lean on were miles and miles away, so i turned to my friends, also as most teenagers do. So reading these journals around my teenage years, yes some of those events feel dramatic the way i wrote about them but as an adult now, at that time they were very real.
What i really disliked about that time in life is that as a teenager, we go through these emotions that adults dont really consider to be anything more than a phase or whatever label you want to put on it, but at the time, they are very real feelings and experiences to us. I hope I am sensitive to that when my boys are older.
A lot of people i talk to, eventually, you end up talking about something that leads to "when i was in high school" or "when i was a teenager"... because that was a time when we were learning about our world, forming relationships, faced with our first real disappointments, trying to find our identity etc.. a lot of things stem back to those dreadful teenage years :)
So as I was saying, I am thinking about these old journals I have. all the way from about 3rd grade to now. from the early years some entries are funny like "I love my dog" lol. Others remind me of times me and my best friend would fight "I will never be Amanda Pattersons friend again!" then here we are age 28 as best of friends as 2 people could be lol. then teenage years... the years I most like to read. A few reasons for this. One it really helps me see how much I have changed and grown. I can read the process. two it shows me what a smart kid i was at times. for not really having support at times when i needed it, how did i know at that age to do what i did and make it out ok? it is pretty nice. I used to read a LOT of psychology stuff back then (still do) I didnt understand some people, I wanted even then to train myself to be a good parent and grown up. I took many classes in high school that to this day I still have some sacred information I saved from that time. I have a folder of stuff.
Another reason I saved those things is because I have a niece who i loved so much! seriously. i prayed for a sister and god took away whatever child my mother was pregnant at the time with, but i gained a niece who i treated like my sister, my daughter, my friend, my everything. i was protective of her. I knew what she was in for and wanted to make sure i could help her and had resources to do so. So, like a little psychologist and nurse that i felt i was lol, i saved everything important so i could share with her and help her. I was born to look out after other people.
So On this Sunday morning I am thinking about pulling that shoebox full of old journals down to read through them a bit but also there comes the consequence of feeling bad or sad again over something old. Usually i do read parts of those journals around moving time as im packing up my old shoe box to another box...ready for moving. I mean, reading those less than desirable sections of the journals doesnt make me feel down right awful, but, sometimes those entries show you that some people or things never change, and it puts an impression in your memory bank that maybe had i not written down that entry, i would have forgotten and i would have been for the better. We should be remembering the good times. but coming across those "bummer" entries is unavoidable. maybe i should put a warning label on those ones lol!
Anyhow.. off to finish my cleaning. maybe I will write a new entry in this old dusty journal that has been sitting on my shelf once I am done. I also have a journal I started for my boys when i became pregnant with brody. a very good idea! takes me back to a place i LOVED! remembering my pregnancy, and how i felt, my feelings about being a mother, how ecxcited i was etc.. about once a year i update it. Again, it is a part of that "i have to take care of people" in me. I have their baby books i wrote in extensively.. i wanted to live every moment and not forget anything i went through. One day if they ask me a question, i want it to be documented incase i forget or if something were to happen to me, they would have the information and now at that time how much i absolutely loved them and all that they did even if it was just the first time they held a bottle lol!
I have also gathered a lot of family history for them. I have a folder, print outs, pictures etc of some really good documentation about their family. my side and marks side. such interesting material! To me, it is so important to know where not only you came from, but where your family came fronm. it gives a real appreciation to life.
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