Starting journaling after a break

[independence1776]

I know this community's been dead for a while (the last post was in 2013!), but I figured I'd try.

Due to Darth Real Life, I stopped journaling (even though it was stuff I should have been journaling about) and I'd like to start again. But I feel a bit strange just starting up again. I want to summarize what happened over the past couple of years and yet making time for that seems cause procrastination, so I don't do any journaling at all.

Does anyone have any advice on how to start journaling again?

Comments

[omnipotent]

I honestly don't know! I haven't written in a paper journal in a while.

Maybe you could summarize in bullet points? Then after doing the bullet points, you could expand on whatever point you feel you'd like to record more in-depth?

[independence1776]

That is a wonderful suggestion and likely to work. Thank you!

[arliss]

It was a seven year gap for me, during which I lost a child, a parent, and moved cross country to an entirely new environment. I kept thinking "I should chronicle this" as I was going through it, but it was simply too much to try and sort enough to write about.

Eventually I abandoned the paper journal I'd been keeping--it's about three-fifths full, and I hope eventually to fill those blank pages with even partial memories and thoughts of those years and events.

But I started in a new blank book, from that moment, and just moved forward. For me it was the only way to go. I'm not back into regular, or even frequent, journaling yet. But I hope to regain that practice by, well, practice.

[independence1776]

I'm sorry for your losses.

I did think about starting a new book, but I'm a completionist so having the half-blank book would drive me up a wall.

I hope you get back into practice, too.

[newredshoes]

I've actually had wonderful luck with some Artist's Way-style morning pages -- you just handwrite three pages every morning, no matter how trivial or expansive, just to get it out of your head and onto the paper. It's not pretty, but it's an excellent routine and I think it has helped me take some pressure off myself and figure out some feelings'n'stuff.

[independence1776]

I'm glad that's worked for you, but it definitely wouldn't for me. Even when I was journaling regularly, it was rare I went longer than a page. I also used journaling as a way to wind down at night, so doing them first thing in the morning would rather defeat that.

Thanks for trying to help!

[butterflydreaming]

I had a big gap in my paper journal this summer because of overwhelming events, so much so that I couldn't even write about them. I feel the best thing to do is just start today's entry. As you go forward, you can start to fill in what happened in the gap. My entries came back in fits and starts, going from months apart to weeks to days until I was back to mostly daily again. Short entries are fine. Your future biographer ;) will be able to piece it together.
If you're using the same journal instead of starting fresh, you could leave a half page blank but for the words: I'll get back to this part later.
Oliver Sacks wrote journals his whole life, which he rarely reread. In one if his memoirs he says, the important thing was the act if writing, just doing the writing, moreso than what he wrote.

[independence1776]

Thank you for the advice!

[cloudsinvenice]

I also find it good to just start with recapping the day, even if it's just bullet points of what I did/what happened. If it's hard to look at the last entry, in light of all that's happened since, I'll physically turn the page and maybe write something big, like the year or something else apt, on a page with a flourish before I resume daily entries. Seems to help...

[gokuma]

Hi :) I've just re-started journaling myself and I wonder how you are doing.

Also, "Darth Real Life" made me smile so much. (I hope you're doing better now though).

[independence1776]

DRL isn't my invention; I was on a Star Wars forum in the mid 2000s and got it from there.