Every now and then, I’m overcome with the urge to clean. Not straighten or tidy, not fold or tuck in, but REALLY clean. Such was my mood this morning, and while I didn’t have much time to do anything before work, I had enough in which to do a couple of loads of laundry and clean the dust bunnies** collecting around the massive piles of books and journals that have amassed around my bed.
One of those journals happened to be the one I began writing poetry in, back when I was 15, and I recently used the very last page, filling up the journal after 10 years of sporadic but dedicated use. The pages themselves are a mess — the whole journal is, really, filled with scribblings and doodles and attempts at lyrics and cross-outs and second-thoughts, and there are countless looseleaf pages written all over and folded up and shoved between the pages. I won’t post the last poem here (primarily because the journal is upstairs and I am downstairs, and really, it hasn’t been re-read or edited very much at all), but it’s so fitting for the final page of that journal, and I was so grateful that I was moved enough, at the time, to end it on that positive of a note…
There’s just something about filling up a journal like that… Knowing it’s seen you through so many years and so many phases and so many difficult times. And so many happy times! Those are woven throughout, as well.
I’m thinking about all of this again right now because I feel like writing, tonight, and I’ve got mixed emotions about opening up a new journal to write in. I know that some of you in particular (Jess!) will understand this, but I’m almost afraid. What if it’s not the right journal? What if it doesn’t work? How am I going to feel, writing in a journal that’s not the only one I’ve opened for this purpose for ten years?? It’s so silly, and so funny how at-home a few bits of cardboard and metal and paper can make you feel.
I suppose that’s enough rhapsodizing for the evening… Time for one more load of laundry, and then bed — work at 11am tomorrow, and OH MY GOSH, here’s to hoping the roads are actually cleared by then. Today’s commute was really not fun.
G’night, all!
* Points if you get the reference.
** My bedroom has a ridiculously high dust-factor. I can’t understand it, but it’s so irritating.
There’s just something about filling up a journal like that… Knowing it’s seen you through so many years and so many phases and so many difficult times. And so many happy times! Those are woven throughout, as well.
Amen to that. It’s so insanely true, how a journal can chronicle life’s important moments and grow to mean so much to us! I have tons on my shelf I HAVEN’T been able to bring myself to finish. I always go out and get a new one before I can read THE END because I get completely panicked. It’s so strange.
And I’ve been in that cleaning mood for weeks honey! It’s just a winter thing, I think.
Hope work went well! *hugs*
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Oh how well I understand this… And every time I get a journal that I feel may be “the one” that I will “really write in and really try to record my thoughts so I have something to look back on when I have children”… I walk into a Barnes & Noble or Borders and find one that I think may be “the one” more than the one I just bought.
And such starts my never ending battle with journals.
Good luck! ;)
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