Journals have been my best friend since I was about 8 years old. I think I just learned early on in life that if I wrote down everything that I was thinking and going through it made it easier. I felt so much better when I was able to share my deepest feelings and get them out of my head and heart.  Why or how this started I couldn’t tell you but I just remember finding notebooks at any store that had carried them and loving to fill them up with Lisa Frank stickers and filling the pages with different colored pen inks.

As the years went on I never gave up on my best friend. I continued to fill up journals and the ones closest to me would even buy me journals. I still remember in high school when my boyfriend’s mom bought me this beautiful floral journal and it was just the perfect size and shape. I loved that journal. I haven’t always had this incredible bond with a journal right off the bat but after a few weeks in my journals they quickly become a part of me and we are usually inseparable. I have journals from vacations when I was a kid and also journals where I had really hard times in my life. I recently found a journal that shared the experience in detail that my family went through when my dad had a terrible accident.

This is a great way for me to seg way into what do I put into my journals…well here we go. When I was younger I would fill my journals with things about my days, the friends I played with, my days in the pool and little wish lists of toys that I really wanted. As I got older more troubling things came my way. In high school maintaining friends and a boyfriend was both exciting and scary. I filled journals about a best friend that I had and how upset she was once I got a boyfriend. She began spreading rumors about me and made me feel just horrible. At the same time I was excited in my relationship. My high school sweetheart and I were together for 5 years. That means that my journals quickly became filled with awkward experiences and things that he said that made my heart just flutter. Reading about those days now is just so sweet. There is nothing better than young love and that feeling that you could never live without that person. I had so many firsts with this person and I loved sharing all of it with my journals. As my high school days came to an end I remember journaling and dreaming about what college would be like. What would my roommate be like and living on my own in the dorms. Many of my journals at this time were filled with mixed emotions. Leaving behind high school friends but at the same time embarking on such an exciting journey. If I were to thumb through those journals right now I remember writing about each of my friends as they each left for school. I was one of the last ones and before each of us left we would all get together and just have a wonderful time together.

Once in college these were some of the most eye-opening and wonderful times of my life. This was truly the turning point for me when I was able to realize who I was as a person and learn what it was that I wanted. My freshman year was very significant. Many ups and downs with my roommate to the emotions that ran through me when I broke up with my high school sweetheart. As I go back on these pages I just cherish them so much more than I did at the time. I think this is where the reward comes in and why I continue to journal. It’s a treasure that you have forever of experiences that can easily be forgotten. If it wasn’t for my journals I would have forgotten so many little memories that I loved in my life. It helps me to really appreciate the life that I have and embrace the good with the bad. If I look back it’s easier to understand why something bad needs to happen in order for the rainbow at the end of the road to appear. Throughout the years I have documented holidays and who was there and what the feelings was to me. Again, this is so cherished because many of my family members have passed away and having these memories of them makes me so happy to look back on.

Towards the end of my college career I spent ALOT of time in my journal. I was using a Miquel Rius notebook and filled it completely front to back. That a good 600 pages. This was the most critical time for me during nursing school. I had dreadful thoughts of not becoming a nurse and I would spend nights filling my journal with prayers and wishes to have the strength to get through school. I also had moments where I could not believe that I was becoming a nurse. I would fill pages of what scenarios looked like once I was on the unit. How would I handle a code or even taking on my first patient load. Many many pages were dedicated and focused on nursing. After passing the boards and becoming  what my dream was my journals quickly became filled with the experiences that I began having. The first body that I had to send to the morgue, what that looked like and how I felt. Some of the codes that I was involved in, the different experiences I had with preceptors and peers on the unit. Interactions with physicians. Unique cases and terrible traumas that I took care of. These are some really precious and treasured journals because this was a time in my life that I really and truly felt like I found my purpose in life. This was my calling and to see it all evolve in my journals fills my heart with so much joy. Soon after the journals began to get filled with relationships. Being that I was now in my mid 20s the thoughts of marriage and children began to fill my thoughts. I wanted a family now that I had my career settled. Boy did I learn ALOT about myself in my journals going through these relationships. I shared within these journals emails and text messages and arguments along with wonderful vacations and places that I was able to travel to. These journals are the really thick journals from Barnes and Noble and I love looking through these journals. I also have a journal that I shared when my husband proposed to me and in that journal I even have little notes that my husband use to leave for me when we were dating and he would have to leave really early in the morning to drive back to work. At the time we only saw each other on the weekends so our time was so precious. I love being able to go back and look at these journals and be immersed in the feelings all over again. I took a journal with me on our honeymoon and share all of our days in Hawaii and places that we were able to see, becoming pregnant and having my first baby, I have documented all of this in journals.

I hope that you are able to see just how meaningful and amazing journals are. I cherish my journals and love looking at them on my shelves. I love running my hands through them and occasionally picking one out to look at. I know what time of my life each journal is from. I had developed such close relationships with each of them that it’s like reconnecting with an old friend every time I go back. Some journals stay closed because even though the journal was a good friend what’s inside is something that I don’t want to visit. It’s something that I am happy is over and stays in the journal.

I can’t even express how many tears and love have gone into these notebooks and how much a part of my life they are. I hope that I am able to inspire you to pick up a journal and start writing. Is something  weighing on your heart? are you excited about something or scared about doing something? Fill your pages with all of this and watch as your life story unfolds in these amazing books we call journals!