I came. I saw. I journalled. And I continue to do so, joyfully.

Actually, ever since I retired earlier this year – March 15th, the Ides of March in case you’d like to tuck that date away to commemorate my one-year-anniversary come 2018 – I’ve been doing a lot more writing in my journal. Or journals, rather. I keep a small one in my purse, one in the wicker tray I use to house all my reading materials for bedtime perusal, one in the car, one in my going-to-Barnes-and-Noble backpack and a spiral-bound notebook that I originally started for writing Morning Pages. I’ve applied my own twist to the practice, however, writing whenever the heck I feel like it during the day – I call it my Daily Pages – and writing anywhere from just a paragraph, maybe a page or two or even the prescribed three pages (or more), in longhand, to explore whatever it is I want to say or express or document as to what’s going on in my life.

Recently, I purchased a set of multi-color fine-tip markers to jazz up, enliven, highlight and otherwise amplify my reading and writing experiences. Yellow highlighters are also quite useful, maybe not so much for journaling but certainly for noting key passages in the books and magazines I collect (not unlike the typewriters I once accumulated over the years but that’s another story). If the written word is part of the equation, so too are these brown laser-enhanced optical wonders located mere inches from my hairline and any colorful means possible to capture and celebrate the beauty and inspiration and joy I so delight in when I am both reading and writing.

Some may chafe at the suggestion but I enjoy looking back every now and then, re-reading the journals I’ve written, gleaning clues sometimes as to what year we went to Mackinac Island (2012) or whether we hosted Thanksgiving in 2015 (we did). It is often amusing to read about how annoyed I’d been over something that had happened at work but my self-righteous indignation provides no clues whatsoever as to what the offending situation actually was and I’m left to guess as to what I was even referring to. Must have been really important, eh?

As much as I enjoy keeping a journal now as an adult, I’m surprised I never kept a diary as a young girl. I do recall owning one and I’m sure I wrote a few entries here and there. Some women (perhaps men too but I can’t speak to that) still have every diary and journal they’ve written in since they were kids. I think that’s nice. While that’s not an option for me, I’ll do the next best thing and save (and cherish) the ones that I do have and will continue to write – and read! – as long as those two brown apertures of mine are still blessedly able to do so. Write on, peoples!