A Lifetime of Scribbles

I have been writing in a journal, everyday since December 31, 1996. So I have a record of my life for the past seventeen years come this New Year's. What started as a project between two friends turned into a lifetime of records. When I first started the journal I was eleven and had a lot of time on my hands. My journal entries from back then are lengthily and pretty descriptive. In the last ten years, the entries have turned into a single page and each entry is usually about what I did that day. There are days that I don't write in it, but I almost treat it as homework and fill in the date I missed and write as though it is that day and record what I did. So there are times in the evening where I'm writing in my journal for an hour, trying to remember what I did last Tuesday. I often have to ask Rob and he's actually getting pretty good at recollecting our day to day for me.
 It's strange because I know that I could just stop. I could even just write in it whenever I thought about it. But I can't stop. It is a part of me and what I do everyday. I'm not too thrilled with the fact that Alina will look at my journals once I am gone with her siblings and see how imperfect I am. She'll know all of the bad things I did as a teenager and read about all of the mistakes I made. It was never meant for my children or anyone for that matter. It was just for me. So why am I almost OCD about keeping up with it? My Auntie's mother in law kept a diary for 80 something years. I think that will probably be me. I'll have a book shelf stacked with journals from my life.
 I have each journal numbered and I also have a journal log so that I can find a certain date quickly if I ever need to. The journals have come in handy for us a number of times. Most importantly I can look back at entries I wrote, about people that have passed. It's nice to be able to read about my loved ones that are no longer here. I remember looking through old journals when my step dad Rudi died. I just scanned the pages for his name. I haven't done it for my dad just yet. I visited dad on the weekends and in the summer so I will have weekend long entries about him. I look forward to delving into my past with dad sometime soon..
 I do have a fantasy that one day one of my kids will be into writing like me. I imagine she/he will go through all of my journals and put together a memoir from my point of view and it will become a best seller.  It will be my dream come true, after I am gone. I always said I wanted to be a "famous" author. Emphasis on famous, of course.
 So I suppose it will be a gift to my children, one day to be able to look on their mom's life and really find out who I am.. outside of being their mother.

My trunk full to the brim with my journals and special mementos from my life..