Don't Know the Real Eva Aurora? Maybe That's a Blessing

I used to write in a journal. I wrote long, long entries, full of angst and joy and deep thoughts. I wrote until I couldn't keep my eyes open late at night. I wrote when I was frustrated or feeling like a loser. I wrote when something beautiful happened. In short, I wrote a lot and I recorded my life from the time I was about 6 and my mother gave me my first red journal full of blank pages to the time I was married and I had filled up many notebooks.

I looked in my current journal the other day and realized that the last thing of note that I had recorded in my journal was in 2006. 6 years ago! Not only that, but the event about which I wrote was terribly significant for me. Unfortunately, as I read that entry, I could only remember the bare essence of it. This amazing spiritual experience was mostly lost in the mists of my mind. Had I not written it down, I would have nothing of it left. What else of such importance have I forgotten?

I don't, of course, have all that time to write in my journal anymore -- at least, not with a pen on paper. I tried on Sunday, and after a mere 200 words, my hand was so sore I could barely grip the pen. My blog -- my poor, neglected blog -- has sufficed as a place to record some things, but with a blog like this, I can't put all my deepest feelings and thoughts and emotions out into the open as freely as if I were writing in a private journal. Even if I use a pen name, it's still too public, and many of my friends know who Eva Aurora really is. I don't think they really want to read about my deepest thoughts and feelings and then see me at church or at the grocery store.

Or maybe they do. Sickos.

Anyway, the point is, I am making a go of writing in my journal again. I could just type things and print them and collect them in a binder (which I have done before), but I miss the quiet, contemplative moments needed to shape words into sentences and then write them out, letter by letter. Even if I can only write a little bit, I figure it's better than nothing. And, if worse comes to worse, I can always spend five minutes and type it all up.

The one problem I have that I didn't face as a younger, single person, is the thought that my journal will be read by my posterity. At least, the idea that anyone else would want to read it never seemed quite so real until I had my own children. Now I measure what I write by the yardstick of what I want to leave as a legacy to my kids. I should quit thinking like that and just burn everything when I reach the age of 80.

One thing my journal is lacking, like my blog, is pictures. At least I'm consistent in that way.