As happens every time I move, I browsed through a couple of my old journals. I was once so meticulous, particularly when traveling. That six weeks in England ten years ago? I wrote every day, I wrote every detail and feeling. The colors of walls and carpets, the way someone’s acne looked, the way tea with soymilk tasted.

What will I do with all of it? What is it worth? I know what it is worth — it is how I learned to write.

I found my very earliest journal, started shortly after my fifteenth birthday. It is pretty much so embarrassing that I will never show it to anyone. Even if I became *~famous~* and published my diaries (ha), the stuff from high school will go into the fire.

So anyway, I have this pile of little books I’ve been carrying around for… almost twenty years? I haven’t kept a steady handwritten journal since… gosh… 1998. Then I started blogging. I made a few failed attempts in the intervening years, always lasting only a few entries.

I ought to start again. To write something none of you lot will get to read. To give myself permission to be as self-absorbed and whiny as I need to be. That’s all a journal is sometimes. A record of one’s day, complete with all the TMI and secrets and processing.

My last journal volume, the one I kept throughout 1997 and into 1998 is actually the one that is the most readable. I was starting to mature. Only starting! heh. But it’s filled with drama and romance and action and heartbreak and triumph and twists and turns. That was one HELL of a year. Maybe I’ll type it out someday.