The Death of My Journal Days

So, here's a fairly interesting (you can skip the Pepys stuff) article from The New Yorker about keeping a diary that has made me think a bit about the styles and methods I use to record my life.

In college, I was good. I was brilliant. People could (and did) say, "Hey, what was going on a year ago Thursday?" or "What party did I kiss that boy at?" and I simply flipped open one of my numerous journals and had the answer. It's always been journals for me, never diaries. My notebooks were full of feelings and the occasional poem rather than a detailed account of my days. I only knew what you were doing last Thursday if I felt something about it. If you were cooking eggs, no, probably not in the journal. If you were teasing me about something, maybe. If we were commiserating over the men in our lives, definitely.

My journals have always been boy-heavy. This probably dates back to my elementary school days, when a journal (though I called it a diary then-- I didn't know the difference) was the only safe place to store the name of the boy I liked. I never liked the right boy, the cool one that all the other girls giggled over. Whenever questioned, in those early days, I only admitted to still pining for Tommy Patterson, the boy I'd loved in first grade, who moved away to Oklahoma. Even at eight, my crushes had staying power, or at least that's the illusion I created.

In college, my boy journalling reached an extreme, coincidentally at the same time that my entrapment in a pseduo-relationship with a non-attainable boy reached its pinnacle. Or is it coincidentally? Does journalling mollify the emotions, allowing them to ease out safely, or does it merely intensify them? I don't know. Anyway, I used to joke that if a future civilization found my journals, they would think I worshipped a primitive god with this certain boy's name.

I don't journal much anymore. It could be a time thing. Though I used to journal whenever possible, I got most of it done during boring classes. It could be the lack of a heartbreaking love affair, less angsty emotions to pour off my soul. Angst might be the key, for me. Because I still keep a journal-- a little brown leather notebook (and now is not the time to explore my new, conflicted feelings over leather) that I take almost everywhere with me-- but the style has changed. I keep everything in this book: finance notes, grocery lists, reminders, events, outlines and passages from novels I'm working on, ideas, and more. Every once in awhile I will write down what I'm feeling about something. But while it used to be a cherished and neccessary part of my day, it now feels strange and alien to do this. Not sure why.

What I'm doing now isn't exactly diary-keeping, but it's closer. It's more detail-oriented. A cross between a diary and a writer's notebook, maybe. Are diarists the grown-up journallers? The boring journallers?