Saturday, December 24, 2011

Fifty years of journals



Today I have had a shameful amount of free time – well, time I should have spent working on the syllabi for next semester, but didn’t -  and decided to look through my previous journals to see what I wrote about Christmas.
It struck me when I went to Journal #1, which began March 20, 1961, when I was in the seventh grade.

I have been writing a journal for fifty years!  The one I’m in now is number 56; the journals are not regular in their entries. I had one or two books for the four years I was in college, but five books for the two years I was a postulant/novice. Again, I had two books for the six years that I was the Sister-Servant ( local superior) of our house at Alto Road… and then three books for the two years I was studying at the Washington Theological Union.  Also, the books differ in size, though most of them are black marble copybooks.  What accounts for the amount of writing?  Time, primarily.  Also, stress.  I wrote the least when I probably should have written most --- when life was tough.  And even now, I don’t like to go back and read those particular volumes ; the writing brings it all back way too vividly.


 

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