Emotionally Attached To My Journal

[Charles Skinner]

"I take my pen in hand to drop you a few lines."

 

 

This likely will be a "strange post." But here goes anyway. At times, I have the feeling that if I "lose everything else," I will still have my journals! They have become somewhat of a "security blanket." I can always escape the "cares of the day" by picking my current one up and start writing.

 

​Don't know how to explain this. During the almost 60 years of writing in my journals, they have always been an "escapee from the cares of the day." I know this will sound silly, but writing in my journals has become almost like talking to an old friend, one who does not judge and always listens.

 

I fear a time in the future when, for health reasons, I may no longer be able to write in my journals. How will I deal with that? Don't know and don't want to think about it! A thought came to me once when I was having those thoughts --- that perhaps I could continue my "journal" by making a "recording" with spoken words instead of written ones. It would not be the same, of course, but might serve a purpose.

 

So, tell me. Are you emotionally attached to your journals, as I am?

 

C. S.

[inkstainedruth]

In a way, I know how you feel. I started doing "morning pages" journals about a decade or so ago, and on the days when I don't get an entry done I'm kinda out of sorts. Even doing it in fits and spurts (and there have been times when I've had to go someplace early, and so I'm doing them in the car while my husband drives) is better than nothing.

I had treated myself to a nice journal and a fountain pen (a cheap Parker Reflex) to get myself into the habit of doing it initially. And then when I accidentally left the then-current volume and pen (by then I had "upgraded" to a Parker Vector ) at my brother-in-law's house, I tried to make do with writing the entries with a ballpoint and it just felt... wrong....

So yes, I'd *definitely* say I'm emotionally attached to my journals.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[Charles Skinner]

I have just had another thought about my journal! I believe that I am addicted to my journal in somewhat the same way as many people are addicted to their "smart phones!" No danger of me catching THAT "disease" since all I have is an old "flip phone!"

 

"Be for real," and "write on!"

[Sasha Royale]

Emotional attachment to inanimate objects is neurotic.

However, my Parker fountain pens tell me that it is within psychological norms.

The Esterbrooks vote 11 to 5, that you are nuts , but most of them are old and senile.

[inkstainedruth]

Emotional attachment to inanimate objects is neurotic.

However, my Parker fountain pens tell me that it is within psychological norms.

The Esterbrooks vote 11 to 5, that you are nuts, but most of them are old and senile.

 

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[Charles Skinner]

It seems that none of you consider your love of your smart phones to be an emotional attachment! Think about it the next time you hear me "blow my horn" from behind you because you were texting instead to looking at your "green light." C. S.

[Charles Skinner]

Just back from Target with my wife who always seems to have a need to "go shopping." I keep telling her that "those people will get your money if you go in there," but that does not stop her! She likes to hand her money to other people!

 

For a change, I went with her and took my journal. Bought a cup of really bad Starbucks coffee, sat down and started writing in my journal. Wrote about what the people coming and going looked like. About the two young people who were being interviewed for jobs. About the "security guard" on duty near the front door. About what good lighting they saw fit to install in the Starbucks table area, About how much I love the two Jinhao 159 pens which I took with me. About how much money we would have it I could just keep my wife out of stores! ----- etc --- So, so do you see how "attached" I am to my journal? C. S.

[inkstainedruth]

Not to mention how much you could have saved by not buying the bad Starbucks coffee.....

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[darazs]

How many Jinhaos for a bad Starbucks coffee?

 

Where I live, it would probably be more than 1

[rwilsonedn]

I don't know about emotional attachment, but I do know that I misplaced my travel journal a couple of weeks ago, and since then both my wife and I would every once in a while spring up and try looking in yet another place for it. By the end of two days we had exhausted all the plausible places, but then we just started over again and kept sporadically searching. When it finally turned up, stashed in the back of a closet we'd searched about a dozen times, we both celebrated.

To be fair, it has some wonderful associations for us. We bought it in a little stationer's in Montreal. The cover is an attractive pastiche of steamer-trunk labels and postmarks. The paper is horrible for fountain pens--almost waterproof--but that hasn't stopped me from using it across a decade of trips, great and small. There are mnemonics to wonderful times in there.

ron

[Studio97]

I am definitely emotionally attached to my journals. I'm not a morning pages person. Somedays i dont write anything at all. On tuesday I knocked out 20 pages. I average 5 to 6 pages a day in an A5 journal. I add small sheets with my drawings and photos Ive made of some of my paintings. I write about anything and everything: local stuff; memories, family friends photography art, disasters, crime, nuclear threats, strange things I have witnessed, close calls, things i want to do. But never lists like 3 things, 5 goals, blank number of whatever. I just lay stuff down as it comes on any particlar train of thought and change ink color sometimes with new topics. I take down notes from police scanner calls of the more serious ones and then check the news later to see what matches. Somtimes the calls can be hilarious. "I didnt get ketchup with my fries" If my pile of journals were ever compiled as an autobiography, "I Didn't Get Ketchup With My Fries" would have to be the title.

Edited October 6, 2017 by Studio97

[inkstainedruth]

I take down notes from police scanner calls of the more serious ones and then check the news later to see what matches. Somtimes the calls can be hilarious. "I didnt get ketchup with my fries" If my pile of journals were ever compiled as an autobiography, "I Didn't Get Ketchup With My Fries" would have to be the title.

 

That's an awesome title! Love it!

Of course it *also* would be a great title for a Country and Western song. Or possibly a parody of one by Weird Al Yankovic....

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[Studio97]

I have decided to title each of my journals as opposed to just dating them. And thanks Ruth!

[Charles Skinner]

Emotional attachment to one's journal ------- I just had a thought. ---- a rather unusual thought ----- Have you ever heard of a husband and wife writing in the SAME journal? Same page? One completes a line, and the other just starts a new paragraph on the next line.

 

An interesting idea. Not for me, but perhaps for some folks.

 

C. S.

[warhorse]

will try this again .............can't post !!!!!!!

Edited January 6, 2018 by warhorse

[RockingLR]

I will admit, I just recently started journaling as part of a kind of self-therapy and I found it amazingly cathartic. I think I've become attached to my journal as the one above mentioned it's a way to have a friend that is always there and always listens but never judges. I can write about anything and everything I need to think through or just yabber about and yet never have to worry one way or another. Though should someone else read it they may laugh, cry or think I'm crazy hahaha.....maybe someday it'll be my own "meditations by Marcus aurelius" hahahahaha.

[moylek]

I'll fess up to that sort of emotional attachment.

 

I've been writing in journals for twenty seven years (since a bad breakup in my early twenties, when I wanted to spare my friends my endless ruminating). My current volume always comes with me when I'm travelling - business, road trip, family vacation, remote hiking, no matter. And when I have found myself without it - well, "panic" is too strong a word, but not completely wrong.

 

Last year, I found myself unexpectedly staying at a friend's place for a weekend and didn't have my diary with - so I had to pop out the first morning to buy a pocket Leuchturm to write in. I went straight from the store to a pub and the relief when I sat down with pint, pen, and paper was startling ... ridiculous, even, I thought at the time.

Edited January 6, 2018 by KennethMoyle

[warhorse]

Started a second journal series on the day that my wife of 41 years passed away. Am I nuts ??? that's open for discussion !

 

Some days I can rip through 10-15 pages, and I'm at peace with the world. Some days I can hardly string two sentences together and it's the hardest thing that I have ever done. Am I emotionally attached to my journal ? Guess I am ,but I will keep writing as long as I can hold a pen !

 

(I had a mild stroke, but that's a whole different story)........Jay

 

P.S. The Jinhao is to stir the coffee !!!

Edited January 6, 2018 by warhorse

[flyingfox]

Emotional attachment to one's journal ------- I just had a thought. ---- a rather unusual thought ----- Have you ever heard of a husband and wife writing in the SAME journal? Same page? One completes a line, and the other just starts a new paragraph on the next line.

 

An interesting idea. Not for me, but perhaps for some folks.

 

C. S.

 

OMG bring back memories... “exchange diary”/ group diary used to be so popular back when I was in elementary school!

 

There are several ways to do it, but the way I did was- my best friend and I each had a notebook, and wrote in it. Then- next day, we swap the notebook and write in it for the day, then swap it again for the following day. She and I were in the same class, and spent a lot of time together after school, so it was hilarious to see what each of us decided “worthy” of being recorded!

 

I am not that emotionally attached to my journal. I have just finshed one of those five years journal (write three lines a day thing) and started a new one. It is cool, that I can remember so much about the day just by those few lines, but it is more for entertainment.

 

My schedule book, on the other hand... I am dependent on it with my life. If I don’t write in it, nothing would happen... I wouldn’t even know when to show up for work...