A big part of my creative process is journaling — both the longhand-written text kind of journaling, and also visual journaling.  I’ll share about the writing part today, and visual journals in tomorrow’s post.

I started keeping a diary as a kid, but didn’t really get into daily journaling until my Junior year in high school.  Our teacher made us write journal entries (you know, for a grade), and it soon became my top creative outlet.  I not only wrote in my journal, but also cut out magazine articles and newspaper clippings, and made collages and illustrations.  I have tons of poems I wrote — a few good ones, and many really sad, desperate teenage girl kind of poems —  as well as long, descriptive narratives of my summer days working, dating, getting into trouble and being completely bored.

I kept writing in that journal through my Senior year, and it’s a priceless artifact now, in all it’s 2″ three-ring binder glory.   I pulled it out to take photos for this blog post, and have now stayed up most of the night reading it.  Fascinating stuff.

It has been interesting to see the world through my own teenage eyes.  Some things are much different from an adult’s point of view (Note to past self:  “He’s just not that into you”).  And then, some things never change.  Even then, I had so much I wanted “to accomplish, so many things to do, places to go, people to see…”  And I still have a hard time being patient, because I “want to go out and do it all.”

Probably my favorite find was in an entry written at the end of the summer between Junior and Senior year.  I had worked all summer at Braum’s Ice Cream Store, and was desperately wishing for school to start back.   I’d had enough of sticky sweet customer service, and was convinced that when I grew up “I’m gonna get myself a career that I like.”   Amen!

Even now I practice journaling on a regular basis.  After reading Julia Cameron’s “The Artist’s Way,” I became re-convinced of the value of writing a few pages of prose every morning, to clear my mind and help me to focus when I’m ready to work.    I use it to write goals, hopes, prayers, meditations, frustrations, ideas and grocery lists.  It’s also a great way of documenting my life at the moment – you forget so much of the everyday details.

And I find it interesting to see what changes over time and what stays the same.