Dear Me, It's . . . Me?

A friend and I had a conversation about how to manage stress a few weeks ago.  As a follow up, she sent me an e-mail the other day asking me if I ever tried journaling.  I have tried it, and I have hated it.

Don't get me wrong.  I am not saying that no one out there should journal.  Apparently some people do it and find it to be really helpful.  I, on the other hand, just don't get it.  I remember being a kid and getting a diary in my stocking one Christmas.  It was one of those faux leather bound books with "gold" edged sheets and a little tiny lock and key.  It was even embossed with the word "Diary" in more of the faux gold (fauld?), as if I would confuse it for one of the other little books that I had that were secured with tiny locks and keys.

What to write?  First of all, as pre-tween living in Western PA in the late 70's, I didn't really have all that much going on that required either A) deep written examination or B) a lockable repository for my thoughts.  Shirley on Laverne and Shirley--one of my ATF shows (all time favorite--not alcohol, tobacco and firearms for the uninitiated)--was always writing in her diary about Carmine and Boo Boo Kitty.  I wasn't doing a lot of dating at the age of nine, and I didn't have such deep, complex relationships with my stuffed animals that they needed to be committed to paper.  I believe that little green pleather book got relegated to the garage sale box.

When I was in Junior High I had a Language Arts Teacher who assigned us to write in a journal which he then graded.  We were required to write several times a week on assigned topics.  In retrospect I understand that his version of "journaling" was really an exercise to get us to develop our own writing styles.  It was Language Arts after all.  I don't remember what the assigned topics were, but I do remember that I was able to construe them in such a way that I wrote my first three entries on why I hated journaling.  At the first entry, he was amused.  By the second entry, he was less amused but did admire my creativity.  (He said so in him comments--red pen and all.)  By the third entry, he had lost his sense of humor about it and told me to cut it out.

At some point in college I purchased a blank journal on my own.  I am not sure what I was trying to accomplish, but it seemed like a way to sort out my thoughts.  Aren't college students supposed to be all inquisitive, searching for the meaning of things and whatnot?  My biggest problem was that I was never sure how to start.  "Dear Diary"?  (I have already established that didn't work.)  Write the entry to an unknown audience? (Dear God, It's Me, BettyBeeBuzz?)  [Bonus points to those of you who got the Judy Blume reference.]  Just write as if having a conversation with myself?  (Dear Me, It's Me.  How am I?)  It all seemed vaguely ridiculous to me.

Of course, the irony is that I realized when responding to my friend's question about whether I journal or not is that blogging is kind of like journaling.  There is no lock and key (or any pleather that I am aware of), and no one is grading me (though I am sure some of you are judging me).  [Don't deny it.  I know that you are.]  It is not so much an attempt for me to sort out my thoughts as it is a place to capture the random ones.  (Girls Next Door and Benefiber anyone?)  The fact that it is something that I post on-line does at least give the illusion that I have an audience, so it doesn't have quite the navel-gazing quality of journaling.  In the end, I suppose that it is just as vaguely ridiculous as the rest of it, but this I actually enjoy.