Recounting the Mundane Days
My journal habits are boring.
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I was a journal-writing fiend in high school. I transitioned from a small, Catholic grade school to a large, public high school and had to make all new friends. One girl I met intrigued me in many ways: she was involved in all of the same activities (theater, band, choir) and was so poised and self-assured. She carried her journal everywhere and was constantly scribbling.
I had always loved to write, so found myself emulating her — filling journal after journal with the emotional ramblings of a teenager. If I was bored in class, I would write, cocky enough that no teacher would dare interrupt my musings by demanding my attention. My journaling was a self-important means of escape.
In college, I wrote less. Gone were the hormones and drama of high school life and I needed it less. As an English major, I was buried in the reading and writing of my coursework and writing for pleasure took a backseat.
Then a job after college. I had to travel to small towns across the United States, usually leaving on Monday and arriving home on Friday. I was so fatigued in the evenings after presentations all day long that I would usually crash in my hotel room and find HGTV or reruns of Friends.
I wrote nothing during that time, which was tragic because some of my travel adventures would have made for excellent stories. Like eating at the tiny town in Nebraska where the only “restaurant” was filled with taxidermy and the idea of a vegetarian meal was a pile of iceberg lettuce.
I began blogging in October of 2009, when my first child was three weeks old. He was a mellow baby and I was bored on maternity leave. Since that time, I have written 1,799 posts.
In 2015, I started another blog, writing about grief after two of my babies were stillborn. I am open about the ongoing effects of pregnancy loss, even years later, in the hopes of raising awareness or letting those with similar experiences know that they are not alone. 363 posts.
And I write here — writing about writing.
A friend of mine — ironically the same friend whose journal-writing fanaticism sparked my interest in high school — says that I am like the modern day Samuel Pepys. A future…
