Where It All Began

I looked around this morning and couldn't find it:  my first "journal" ever.  It must be packed away in a box somewhere in the attic.  Suffice it to say that it is pink, has a weird texture, and says "diary" on the front along with a few musical notes.  Here is a sketch to really give you a visual:  

I was around six when I first started keeping a journal.  Most of what I noted at the time had to do with fights with my brother, getting to go to friends' houses, and an update on our animals.  I wrote because it Rage Rage Against the Dying of the Lightsounded like a good idea.  Since I loved reading, it made sense to me to write.  I remember as a kid putting rules around it.  Put the date at the top.  Start with "Dear Diary".  Write everyday.  Don't write anything you don't want anyone else to read.  So, I wrote mostly mundane details.  I continued to keep a journal into high school, though I became much less rigid with myself, by dropping the "Dear Diary" and writing more freely.  By college, I realized I no longer simply chose to keep a journal:  I had to write.  At some point, it had become a survival mechanism.  I recorded alot of what was going on, wrote down my dreams, and released tons of free verse poetry on those pages.  There was so much going on with my family and my friends.  It was more than I could bear to say aloud so I simply wrote.  I even wrote in third person about the parts of me I didn't want anyone to know.  I pretended they were short stories and everyone got a nickname, including myself.  It helped.  I was able to continually empty myself just in time before the next big upset.  This went on for years.  I was afraid of being too intense for my friends so I didn't vocalize much.  I just kept writing and writing and writing some more.  I did make sure that those around me knew that if I was getting grumpy or irritated  that I probably was just overdue on taking time to journal.  It made that much of a difference for me.  Thankfully, life has settled down a bit and I no longer feel like I am constantly dodging curveballs.  I still keep a journal, reflecting on my days and responses and noting my dreams and personal growth.  I'm not as religious about it and it is not as necessary to keeping me afloat, but I continue to find it helpful.  Sometimes, it will be as simple as bullet points just to spark a memory while other times it will consist of a primitive drawing or layers of color.  I frequently get asked how I got into bookmaking.  While I can go into the details of how I learned to create a book, the basis of my bookmaking has much more to do with journaling and how I feel like it quite literally saved my life several times.

Some of my journals from over the years