Anne, I kept journals as a pre-teen through high school. After losing my spouse, instead of dealing with his family's items boxed in my basement, I started with my personal items. In reading those journals from my youth, I realized they were not for my children to find. I built a roaring fire and read all the pages one Sunday, burning them one at a time. It was a lovely experience to relive those years and reflect on my life.
I did, however, keep one journal. When I was 17 1/2, I traveled to France with a program that included a month-long homestay and travel experiences. It was fabulous, and I thought my adult children might like to giggle over it one day.
Now I need to decide what to do with all those cards and letters from me that my husband lovingly stored all these years. Not sure if they are to be read by anyone else. Thank you for this reflective writing. I enjoyed it.
A few years ago I destroyed all my old journals. I'd been writing them on and off as a teenager, but became consistent from the age of 24 onwards. I destroyed about 10 years of my life and a part of me wished I didn't. But my reason for doing so was the same as yours. I didn't want anyone to read them should I die tomorrow.
On the shelf over my writing desk sit 45 journals written over 40 years. I started journaling when I was about 7 (thanks to my literary heroine Harriet the Spy) and received one of those small diaries with a tiny lock & key. My childhood diaries are gone, but I retained the journals starting with my freshman year in college (1987). There are gaps of years when I didn't journal at all, but I started in with some regularity after reading Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way in the late 1990s. Although I float in and out during the year, I'm consistent to the point of filling a journal (I now exclusively use Scribbles That Matter A5 ruled journals; yes, I'm a Virgo :-)) every 6 months. I journal first thing in the morning, 3-4 pages, emotional reflection/pour-out only. It's throat-clearing for creative writing, and as Melanie states, a companion. I don't reread them and I'm not entirely certain why I keep them. The act of journaling- filling pages with my reflections, frustrations, hopes, the satisfaction of moving pen across page- is what I value and their physical presence bring comfort, so that's reason enough to keep them, for now. After so many moves, letters received are long gone, so these journals are what I have of my past, for better, for worse.
I love reading these responses- so many of us started with a lock-and-tiny-key diary. So many resonate and inspire. Great essay, Anne!
I do journal and have been for many years. I think I started as a way to occasionally vent frustrations with husbands and then moved to daily writing.
Many days now are (happily) fairly boring, but I still do it ritualistically. I also include books I read and my reaction to them and a list of have-reads and want-to reads and a set of goals for the year as I begin a new journal.
When I travel, I'm less likely to write daily, but I do a composite recollection when I return. I live alone so don't worry now about someone reading them, and I doubt someone will take the trouble later. Nor do I worry about what they might find there since these years are pretty tame.
I like the pic of your shredded journals, though, Anne. Cool!
I have been journaling steadily since my daughter was born 26 years ago. I’ve kept all my journals. I’ve recorded mundane daily life, important events, and so much more. Journaling has kept me sane in the midst of unbelievable pain and trauma. During my divorce, as I was trying to deal with my ex’s cheating, I poured my heart out into my journal, filling page after page with my anger and excruciating pain. Going back through them now, I can see how the healing began and how I began to transform into the woman I am now. I journal nearly every day, and yes, I can confidently say that journaling can, indeed, change your life! But I also wonder…do I want my daughter reading these after I’m gone? They’re deeply personal. I still haven’t decided what I’ll do…
Interesting! Journaling definitely helps me through times of strife. I looked at my current one which I started to use daily in Jan 2025 to help me sort through some stuff. It made me realise what I have managed to change. I now do it once a week on a Sunday, I don't always feel like it but it seems to help me reset for week ahead xx
Really interesting how the intensive journaling you undertook helped you figure out things. My journaling has become more sporadic and I only do it when I need to express deep-seated emotions that are strangling me. As the saying goes - better out than in!
Lovely essay. I only ever journaled when I travelled always solo throughout my 20s and 30s. I recently dumped them all into a skip bin because I’d found them so cringe and never been able to read them again. Still don’t know if that was a good decision and I often think of them in a tip somewhere….
I also wrote journals on my travels—that was the only time I felt like I really had something worth recording. And the time to reflect, I suppose. I have hung on to those. They were times when I was growing and expanding. But there are definitely some journals, like those I shredded, that really made me cringe.
I got my first journal/diary in 2nd grade…I’m 56! I’ve journaled off and on for years and it’s served different purposes over time. Right now it’s helping me notice patterns in my mind, life, and art, and it’s also something that I do to help me ground myself when I’m feeling unmoored in any way. It’s starting to feel more like a companion and I like that.
Oh, I love that—your journal as companion. Have you ever done Elizabeth Gilbert’s Letters from Love? I’ve done a version of that in the past, letters from what I simply called ‘Dear One,’ who was like a divine parent and became a kind of companion and guide. It was amazing because I felt that voice coming from deep inside, and it helped me feel less alone when my whole like was crashing around me. I still write those sometimes.
I haven’t done Elizabeth Gilbert’s version specifically, but I’ve done what I call “writing to my intuition” which sounds similar. I’ll ask questions and then open up and free write to see what comes out. I first heard about it through a podcaster named Bella Lively. It’s really useful when I feel like I’m too in my head or need to calm down.
I started journaling during my sick leave to cope with racing thoughts and other symptoms of burnout. Starting this Friday, I’ll be publishing the first 30 days of my diary - one chapter every Friday.
I’m a bit nervous about sharing my innermost thoughts. My hope is that it will help others in a similar situation to feel less alone.
That is so much of what sharing our personal writing is about, I think—helping us and those who read us feel less alone. And Substack is a great place for that. I love your handle. I burned out big time as well and ended up on sick leave. My journaling really took off then.
If anyone could do a great series on Journals of Our Lives, it would be you, Anne.
There's a bigger story here, and one that might make you the leader--preferred Substack voice around this. Here's what I mean. The best way to become a leader is to notice a really large crowd of people moving together and forward and then you jump IN FRONT of the crowd about 10 paces ahead, and keep going, at their pace.
Look at all of these people jumping into your comments and not one of them showed up as The Storyteller of the Journal Keepers. Did you ever consider for a moment that some of the most audacious, entirely possible, and worthwhile for you and them kinds of creative thoughts come from within your tribe of many readers?
It's what you were going to do anyway. No extra work or extra steps. I just gave it a direction and a throughline with all the stories people have about their journal relationships.
Thank you, Georgia! I guess my style is more sharing what matters to me and if people follow along, that’s great. There was a time when I was quite eager to be a leader, to be seen and acknowledged. But writing this Substack has helped me find my way to a role as a writer that feels more comfortable to me and natural. Perhaps I’m already doing what you say in some sense, and that’s fine. But I’m really just following what is coming up for me. And I love it when people respond to that, of course! It’s great to read all these amazing responses.
I’ve been journaling since high school, so many decades. It’s my way of working through my feelings and life. Yes, I had a drawer full of old journals and I tossed them. Why? First those pages of my past were past and I needed to more forward. Second, I didn’t want anyone else to read them and feel hurt or upset. I still journal, not everyday or even every week, I do it when I need to let things out, to let things go.
I destroyed mine for the same reasons. I want to leave the past in the past and move forward, and I also didn’t want anyone to be hurt or troubled by anything I wrote. Yes, journaling is a great way to let things go—and then at some point you need to let the journal go (if that’s what your using it for—a lot of other responses here show other ways of journaling that make more sense to keep).
It has absolutely, but I do it in public, and for different reasons than you do. I did write this out but forgot to save as I went along so would have to rewrite. Instead I'll say it tomorrow, noon ET.
So interesting, both your post and all the responses! I have kept sketchbook/journals off and on all my life, and I'm nearly done with my 6th decade. In the last 15 years or so I have had to deal with the detritus of the lives of both my parents and my husband, along with the detritus of my estranged daughter's childhood when I moved from the home she'd been raised in. Especially in the years after my husband's sudden death, journaling was where I poured out all my grief, loneliness, anger, despair--
The process of dealing with other people's stuff has made me acutely sensitive to my own stuff. For years I saved it: my sketchbooks and journals, and correspondence from friends. This was a habit I acquired from my mother, who saved and treasured every letter or card she ever received (I know this because it fell to me to sort and dispose of all of it). When I moved out of my family's home, I went through my own stuff. I contacted any friends I still could and offered them back their letters (somewhat to my surprise, most everyone wanted the letters back). I then burned the rest, along with old sketchbooks and journals, and old artwork. Very cathartic, fire.
I didn't burn all, though, and have a little shelf of journals. I tend to keep different ones for different purposes: there are the journeying journals, that go on trips but are otherwise shelved; the dream journals (dreams only), the project journals, with sketches, lists, plans and calculations, the journals where I collect poems and other writing that inspires me-- most of these I don't feel done with, so they are hanging around.
Every year I burn things however. The older I get, the more I think of what I'll be leaving for other people to deal with. I don't want the mess to cause pain. Thus, the fire.
Such a great point, Beth! Yes, I think about that too. But having whittled down my belongings to a handful of boxes in my mom’s basement, I’m very aware of what’s in there and I’m not sure what will happen to it someday. I know my mom has lots of writing she plans to leave for me.
You are blessed to still have a mom! Our mother kept boxes of the detritus of each child's life in her basement. Periodically she'd mention these boxes to us, but we all knew she wasn't going anywhere so neither did the boxes. Then everything changed, and we siblings spent a day emptying the basement into a dumpster, remarking on things as they sparked memories, then sending them flying. It was cathartic, and sad. When you have to say goodbye to the mini-warehouse of mom's basement, you know you are on your own for real.
Very interesting. I have never kept a journal. I think the reason why I didn't was that when I was in such a bad state in my first marriage, the thought of writing all of my feelings down on paper, would make it all the more real and horrible. I fictionalized much of my life by writing poems and short stories to get my feelings out. Great post, Anne.
Anne, I kept journals as a pre-teen through high school. After losing my spouse, instead of dealing with his family's items boxed in my basement, I started with my personal items. In reading those journals from my youth, I realized they were not for my children to find. I built a roaring fire and read all the pages one Sunday, burning them one at a time. It was a lovely experience to relive those years and reflect on my life.
I did, however, keep one journal. When I was 17 1/2, I traveled to France with a program that included a month-long homestay and travel experiences. It was fabulous, and I thought my adult children might like to giggle over it one day.
Now I need to decide what to do with all those cards and letters from me that my husband lovingly stored all these years. Not sure if they are to be read by anyone else. Thank you for this reflective writing. I enjoyed it.
A few years ago I destroyed all my old journals. I'd been writing them on and off as a teenager, but became consistent from the age of 24 onwards. I destroyed about 10 years of my life and a part of me wished I didn't. But my reason for doing so was the same as yours. I didn't want anyone to read them should I die tomorrow.
On the shelf over my writing desk sit 45 journals written over 40 years. I started journaling when I was about 7 (thanks to my literary heroine Harriet the Spy) and received one of those small diaries with a tiny lock & key. My childhood diaries are gone, but I retained the journals starting with my freshman year in college (1987). There are gaps of years when I didn't journal at all, but I started in with some regularity after reading Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way in the late 1990s. Although I float in and out during the year, I'm consistent to the point of filling a journal (I now exclusively use Scribbles That Matter A5 ruled journals; yes, I'm a Virgo :-)) every 6 months. I journal first thing in the morning, 3-4 pages, emotional reflection/pour-out only. It's throat-clearing for creative writing, and as Melanie states, a companion. I don't reread them and I'm not entirely certain why I keep them. The act of journaling- filling pages with my reflections, frustrations, hopes, the satisfaction of moving pen across page- is what I value and their physical presence bring comfort, so that's reason enough to keep them, for now. After so many moves, letters received are long gone, so these journals are what I have of my past, for better, for worse.
I love reading these responses- so many of us started with a lock-and-tiny-key diary. So many resonate and inspire. Great essay, Anne!
I do journal and have been for many years. I think I started as a way to occasionally vent frustrations with husbands and then moved to daily writing.
Many days now are (happily) fairly boring, but I still do it ritualistically. I also include books I read and my reaction to them and a list of have-reads and want-to reads and a set of goals for the year as I begin a new journal.
When I travel, I'm less likely to write daily, but I do a composite recollection when I return. I live alone so don't worry now about someone reading them, and I doubt someone will take the trouble later. Nor do I worry about what they might find there since these years are pretty tame.
I like the pic of your shredded journals, though, Anne. Cool!
I have been journaling steadily since my daughter was born 26 years ago. I’ve kept all my journals. I’ve recorded mundane daily life, important events, and so much more. Journaling has kept me sane in the midst of unbelievable pain and trauma. During my divorce, as I was trying to deal with my ex’s cheating, I poured my heart out into my journal, filling page after page with my anger and excruciating pain. Going back through them now, I can see how the healing began and how I began to transform into the woman I am now. I journal nearly every day, and yes, I can confidently say that journaling can, indeed, change your life! But I also wonder…do I want my daughter reading these after I’m gone? They’re deeply personal. I still haven’t decided what I’ll do…
Interesting! Journaling definitely helps me through times of strife. I looked at my current one which I started to use daily in Jan 2025 to help me sort through some stuff. It made me realise what I have managed to change. I now do it once a week on a Sunday, I don't always feel like it but it seems to help me reset for week ahead xx
Really interesting how the intensive journaling you undertook helped you figure out things. My journaling has become more sporadic and I only do it when I need to express deep-seated emotions that are strangling me. As the saying goes - better out than in!
This is in response to our meeting. Here's the syllabus of the course I talked about. Iis chock-a-block wih titles.
https://reveriesunderthesignofausten.wordpress.com/2026/06/02/summer-olli-mason-course-memory-and-self-womens-milestones-enemies-of-promise/
This class looks amazing, Ellen! I’ll share this link when I share the reading list from our meeting.
Lovely essay. I only ever journaled when I travelled always solo throughout my 20s and 30s. I recently dumped them all into a skip bin because I’d found them so cringe and never been able to read them again. Still don’t know if that was a good decision and I often think of them in a tip somewhere….
I also wrote journals on my travels—that was the only time I felt like I really had something worth recording. And the time to reflect, I suppose. I have hung on to those. They were times when I was growing and expanding. But there are definitely some journals, like those I shredded, that really made me cringe.
I got my first journal/diary in 2nd grade…I’m 56! I’ve journaled off and on for years and it’s served different purposes over time. Right now it’s helping me notice patterns in my mind, life, and art, and it’s also something that I do to help me ground myself when I’m feeling unmoored in any way. It’s starting to feel more like a companion and I like that.
Oh, I love that—your journal as companion. Have you ever done Elizabeth Gilbert’s Letters from Love? I’ve done a version of that in the past, letters from what I simply called ‘Dear One,’ who was like a divine parent and became a kind of companion and guide. It was amazing because I felt that voice coming from deep inside, and it helped me feel less alone when my whole like was crashing around me. I still write those sometimes.
I haven’t done Elizabeth Gilbert’s version specifically, but I’ve done what I call “writing to my intuition” which sounds similar. I’ll ask questions and then open up and free write to see what comes out. I first heard about it through a podcaster named Bella Lively. It’s really useful when I feel like I’m too in my head or need to calm down.
I started journaling during my sick leave to cope with racing thoughts and other symptoms of burnout. Starting this Friday, I’ll be publishing the first 30 days of my diary - one chapter every Friday.
I’m a bit nervous about sharing my innermost thoughts. My hope is that it will help others in a similar situation to feel less alone.
Thank you so much for the encouragemen and for sharing your own experience. It means a lot.
I’m glad to have found this community.
That is so much of what sharing our personal writing is about, I think—helping us and those who read us feel less alone. And Substack is a great place for that. I love your handle. I burned out big time as well and ended up on sick leave. My journaling really took off then.
If anyone could do a great series on Journals of Our Lives, it would be you, Anne.
There's a bigger story here, and one that might make you the leader--preferred Substack voice around this. Here's what I mean. The best way to become a leader is to notice a really large crowd of people moving together and forward and then you jump IN FRONT of the crowd about 10 paces ahead, and keep going, at their pace.
Look at all of these people jumping into your comments and not one of them showed up as The Storyteller of the Journal Keepers. Did you ever consider for a moment that some of the most audacious, entirely possible, and worthwhile for you and them kinds of creative thoughts come from within your tribe of many readers?
It's what you were going to do anyway. No extra work or extra steps. I just gave it a direction and a throughline with all the stories people have about their journal relationships.
Thank you, Georgia! I guess my style is more sharing what matters to me and if people follow along, that’s great. There was a time when I was quite eager to be a leader, to be seen and acknowledged. But writing this Substack has helped me find my way to a role as a writer that feels more comfortable to me and natural. Perhaps I’m already doing what you say in some sense, and that’s fine. But I’m really just following what is coming up for me. And I love it when people respond to that, of course! It’s great to read all these amazing responses.
I’ve been journaling since high school, so many decades. It’s my way of working through my feelings and life. Yes, I had a drawer full of old journals and I tossed them. Why? First those pages of my past were past and I needed to more forward. Second, I didn’t want anyone else to read them and feel hurt or upset. I still journal, not everyday or even every week, I do it when I need to let things out, to let things go.
I destroyed mine for the same reasons. I want to leave the past in the past and move forward, and I also didn’t want anyone to be hurt or troubled by anything I wrote. Yes, journaling is a great way to let things go—and then at some point you need to let the journal go (if that’s what your using it for—a lot of other responses here show other ways of journaling that make more sense to keep).
It has absolutely, but I do it in public, and for different reasons than you do. I did write this out but forgot to save as I went along so would have to rewrite. Instead I'll say it tomorrow, noon ET.
So interesting, both your post and all the responses! I have kept sketchbook/journals off and on all my life, and I'm nearly done with my 6th decade. In the last 15 years or so I have had to deal with the detritus of the lives of both my parents and my husband, along with the detritus of my estranged daughter's childhood when I moved from the home she'd been raised in. Especially in the years after my husband's sudden death, journaling was where I poured out all my grief, loneliness, anger, despair--
The process of dealing with other people's stuff has made me acutely sensitive to my own stuff. For years I saved it: my sketchbooks and journals, and correspondence from friends. This was a habit I acquired from my mother, who saved and treasured every letter or card she ever received (I know this because it fell to me to sort and dispose of all of it). When I moved out of my family's home, I went through my own stuff. I contacted any friends I still could and offered them back their letters (somewhat to my surprise, most everyone wanted the letters back). I then burned the rest, along with old sketchbooks and journals, and old artwork. Very cathartic, fire.
I didn't burn all, though, and have a little shelf of journals. I tend to keep different ones for different purposes: there are the journeying journals, that go on trips but are otherwise shelved; the dream journals (dreams only), the project journals, with sketches, lists, plans and calculations, the journals where I collect poems and other writing that inspires me-- most of these I don't feel done with, so they are hanging around.
Every year I burn things however. The older I get, the more I think of what I'll be leaving for other people to deal with. I don't want the mess to cause pain. Thus, the fire.
Thanks for your food for thought today!
Such a great point, Beth! Yes, I think about that too. But having whittled down my belongings to a handful of boxes in my mom’s basement, I’m very aware of what’s in there and I’m not sure what will happen to it someday. I know my mom has lots of writing she plans to leave for me.
You are blessed to still have a mom! Our mother kept boxes of the detritus of each child's life in her basement. Periodically she'd mention these boxes to us, but we all knew she wasn't going anywhere so neither did the boxes. Then everything changed, and we siblings spent a day emptying the basement into a dumpster, remarking on things as they sparked memories, then sending them flying. It was cathartic, and sad. When you have to say goodbye to the mini-warehouse of mom's basement, you know you are on your own for real.
Very interesting. I have never kept a journal. I think the reason why I didn't was that when I was in such a bad state in my first marriage, the thought of writing all of my feelings down on paper, would make it all the more real and horrible. I fictionalized much of my life by writing poems and short stories to get my feelings out. Great post, Anne.
I felt very similarly, Nancy!