Journal Less -- Blog More

Just the other day I was writing a blog post, and I started thinking about how my life could be broken down into three basic segments:

1. The Diary Years
2. The Journal Years
3. The Blogging Years

Like so many young girls, I kept a diary ... one of those with the pink padded fabric, adorned with flowers or butterflies. Complete with the little silver  lock and key. Inside, the pink padded covers, the pages contained all my inner most, deepest thoughts. Mostly about BOYS. I was undoubtedly boy crazy, much to my father's dismay. Luckily, I outgrew my fascination with boys, much to my father's relief. I do find it a bit ironic that I'm now raising two boys of my own. I'm sure my father has thoughts on that too, but graciously keeps them to himself.

The next phase was my journaling years. As a young adult, I kept a leather-bound journal containing snippets of what was going on in my life at that time. It helped me to make sense of the world around me, as I waded through first jobs, settling into married life, figuring out how to be an adult. But, mostly, it's where I poured my heart out about the unexpected death of my mother. My journal was where I worked through the mountainous pile of emotions brought on by grief. My journal was my therapist. It helped me come to terms with her death, which was a pivotal point in my life. Her death has definitely shaped and defined much of my life since.

Then as I entered my forties, my journal became a web log. Then just a blog. Over the past five years I've been busy raising a family, so I haven't been blogging consistently. However, now that my boys are five and almost four, I find that my arms and hands aren't as busy holding babies, changing diapers, removing fiery, tantrum throwing toddlers from public view; therefore, I'm able to devout a bit more time to it. The biggest change is that the diaries and journals were private in nature, and the blog is public.

I've been privately blogging for a little over a year now. Bill tells me that since I blog, in private, it's really more of a journal - a web based journal. I tell him to mind his business, and stop snooping over my shoulder. I'm just a girl, a wife and mother, trying to find her inner writer's voice. You know, before I go all public and stuff.

Before this blog, I had started a couple of other blogs, but can't remember the names or even locate them on the WWW anymore. I've changed the name, design and content of my current blog many times. I'm almost ready to come out of the blog closet, and share the link  to my blog, but not today. Today, I'm busy trying to hone my writing skills. You know, before I go all public and stuff.

And currently my new mantra is: Journal Less - Blog More!