inkwell

journaling is the art of the nostalgic-prone soul.

i have this one journal, from my junior year of college, that is as real and beautiful as i like to see myself in that time period. it is a journal full of the usual boy-gossip and daydreaming, but also full of a girl constantly trying to get things right with God, a girl who likes making words sound graceful, a girl who likes to shamelessly reminisce as much as she likes to record the randomness of each day.

i miss that girl.

blogging is nice...and i enjoy it. but it isn't the same as my former journaling self. i don't think that it is merely the private vs. public nature of the crafts. no...there is something about putting pen to paper, something about making a permanent mark, something about the time that it takes to write words down and the magic that happens in that space.

i admit, my life sometimes feels less journal-worthy these days. old journals recorded the excitement of chance boy-encounters, little things that to the adolescent heart became of utmost importance. getting older means mellowing out in that respect: having a different sense of what is "worth" writing about, a different set of things that make you excited...but also higher expectations. as if journaling always had to be profound or emotional. but journaling is a record of days, some exciting, many not. being married, being older, being at seminary: all these are reasons that journaling sometimes seems tedious, since i am asked to do so much reflection during my life as it is that the reflection involved in journaling seems exhausting. and yet all these reasons are why journals should be my best friends. a place to think about being married -- to think about what has changed in me because of it, a place to reminisce about our path to marriage, a place to ask stupid questions and to write down irrational fears. journals are a place to record how getting older is affecting how i look at the world -- the big things that i fear or that bother me, the things that excite me that seem mundane, like unpacking books and starting the move-in process. journaling gives me the space to freely rant at my faith, to question God, to be disgruntled about how distant seminary feels from whatever spiritual self i might want to be.

give me pen, paper. give me ink. let me hear the scratching of the ball-point pen on thick paper. give me back the feeling of a pen in my hand and a book of blank pages balanced on my knees as i unpack the day before turning off the light and curling up with my husband for sleep.