For the first time, I’m struck by the excess, the endless invitations on most pages to spend a bunch of money and to figure out a reason why it’s worth it. Even the bagel spread on pages 144 and 145 of December 2021 is wooing me, causing me to wonder how much better my breakfast would be if I had a fresh Asiago bagel with cream cheese. Maybe herb cream cheese. One side herb, one side plain? And the slices of tomato? Yes, please! Athens had a great bagel shop that we discovered just before the pandemic with the best blueberry bagels I’ve ever gobbled down. The owners lived just beyond our cul de sac.
Part way through my creative purge, my stomach feels sick. I get two Kadeem tea biscuits and a tea that I don’t love but I need to use up. Maybe my stomach can’t handle all the kneeling I’ve been doing on my hardwood floor. Or maybe I’m getting sick. Or maybe it’s the blood I’m loosing from my monthly cycle. The pause is nice. The pictures have become underwhelming.
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Weeks have now passed and I haven’t tossed the stack of now cut up magazines neither have I opened bins and boxes in our storage space to see if any more Real Simple issues exist from the early 2000s. Maybe I should put that on my to-do list for Sunday and buy myself a small tub of ice cream on Friday to incentivize my Sunday goal.
What I have done on the last few weeks is read old journals. A word to those wanting to be wise: read your old journals. Some of it will be trash but some of it will be gold and the rest (possibly the majority of it) will help you see that if you’d read over old journals sooner, you could have avoided some later messes. Those same journals will show you that you’ve been whining the same whine for far too long in the prayers you’ve written down, of all places. Was God really okay with hearing all that? If my faith had grown why hadn’t my whine at least become a bit more sophisticated?
Too scared to go to therapy but have years worth of journals to read through? It’s not at all on par with therapy but you may still slay a dragon or two as you reflect on who you’ve been. I’m serious when I say that seeing your patterns will give you a new resolve. You’ll also be reminded of things you’d rather not remember and you’ll wish an angel had ripped those pages out. And then you’ll for sure need a therapist.
Nostalgia is pretty until it’s murky. I’m grateful, still. The life I have now is so much better than the one I wanted badly 20 years ago. I had no idea.
I’m aiming for future journal entries that are still honest but are more loaded with things I want to read 20 years from now—like the jokes my kids have told, the notes they’ve stayed up late writing to me and Justin, the wild conversations I’ve had and the things that have made my heart lighter or have caused it to break. No whining. No one will want to publish that after I die. That’s ultimately the goal—posthumous fame.
Kidding. When the magazines leave the house, so will some journals, in tiny shredded bits that only the angels can piece back together.