Journal Journies

So why my sudden interest in going through my old journals? Well, one day I realized that I taught a Sunday School class of 10-12 year olds, yet could hardly remember anything about that age. It seems silly to admit to not remembering a few years back, but a lot has happened since my 11-year-old days! Eleven, by the way, was the age I was when I first started keeping a journal with any real consistency. I was actually a little fanatical about it, writing enough in my first month of writing to fill up an entire journal. Since then, I’ve slowed down quite a bit. Oh, sometimes I’ll go through spurts of entry after entry of completely random musings, which usually end up filling quite a bit of white space, but in general, I’ve lost a bit of my chronicling zeal.

But what did I discover about my little 11-year-old self? Mostly that I was a depressed and sad little child. I never found anything positive about myself or my surroundings, and dwelt mostly on problems that I felt affected me personally. Thankfully my short-sightedness wore off during the years, though when, I’m not quite sure. I’m still reviewing the evidence for a breakthrough from my dismal childhood blues, but haven’t come across anything yet. Mostly I’m just thankful to be far, far away from those days.

Summer couldn't last forever...

Well, I had a great summer. I was away from home from May to the end of August, basically, and it was swell. So why is it the end of September and I'm only just now writing? In short, I'm slothful. And sluggardly, actually. A friend and I were discussing the other day whether or not it was a sluggardly sloth, or a slothful sluggard. Suffice it to say, I usually put off until tomorrow what I could have done today. Of course, since I'm actually doing this now, and it's within the first hour of today, I think it's only fair to say that in this case, at least, I've very decidedly NOT put this off.

All that aside, it's good to be back.

If I were a good blogger, I'd write all about my multitudinous summer adventures (and they were many, my friend) but... well, I just don't feel inspired to do so. Which is terrible! I was just looking through some old journals of mine, and I actually feel vaguely cheated out of all the events I didn't bother writing about because of sheer laziness (what was I just saying about the sluggardly sloth? Yeah, I wasn't joking). For instance, one summer I traveled extensively out West, and forgot my journal. So when I got home I wrote a list of the places I went, and that was that, no funny stories, no anything. There's a whole summer of my teenage years I'll never remember. I run across stuff all the time in my journals that I'd totally forgotten about. Sometimes I wish I could have forgotten them forever (read: anything I ever wrote about the male species, ever), but in general, I like to have at least some sort of documentation of my life.

But... like I said, I won't be able to blog all the time. Also, I have a bunch of blog entries I wrote back in the day (uh, earlier this summer...) that are now vastly outdated, but I figure one day I'll just post a bunch, with the appropriate notes stating that these are old and maybe even boring, but words for those starving for copious amounts of verbiage. Ooh, for instance, I wrote a blog post about a book at my grandma's house that I LOVED, and then she died, and I inherited it. Talk about a swell deal: she's in Heaven (!!) and I got a sweet book. Clearly she came out the victor in this situation, but hey, I'm making the best of still being here on Earth. Which is fine, living is Christ, after all...

So, all this was to say, I'm back. For today, anyhow. We'll see how I do as time ticks by. I trust the Lord is coming soon enough to make this post superfluous, but if He tarries, and you happen to read then, well, welcome, and feel free to smack me if I forget to prepare wordy snacks for your eyes every once in a while. Well, maybe minus some actual smacking. I sure do sound violent. I don't try, I promise!

That's actually something I've been meaning to work on, but that's a whole separate story for a separate post...