Why Don't I Write in My Journal Anymore?

October 28, 2014 9:54 PM

I started keeping a journal when I was in 4th grade. Now that I'm in my 40s, I've lost motivation to write in it.

I have Mead composition notebooks filled with my journal scribblings going back for decades. I started writing in it when I was quite young and really hit my stride through my 20s and mid-30s. I never wrote daily, but still I used to write fairly regularly. It was a time when I was moving around to different cities, figuring out my career and identity, meeting lots of people, looking for sex and love. I had international adventures and boring jobs and feelings of restlessness. In my journal, I wrote about experiences, thoughts, and general chronicles of the years passing.

These days, I'm married with two young kids, and I'm settled into a house and a career. I don't really write in my journal anymore. I'll sometimes pick it and write a few lines. It can be hard to get started when I'm out of the habit. I find that if I make a goal to write consistently over a few weeks, even if it's just one sentence on busy or uninspired days, I can do it and will get into a groove. But after a few weeks, the momentum falters and I put the journal aside.

I've always felt it's important to keep a journal. I'm not exactly sure why. (Maybe if I knew the answer, I wouldn't have this motivation issue.) It just feels odd for me to let life pass by without commenting on it. I take snapshots now and then and like to have them, but they don't offer the context that writing can, and my disposition is more literary than visual.

Here are some reasons why I might have lost my journal mojo:

1. My life doesn't offer the same narrative drive as it used to. I'm no longer questing and searching as I was. The main character in my coming-of-age story has come of age.
2. I lack time and privacy to reflect as much as I'd like. I used to enjoy going to a coffee shop for an hour to write and read. With a family and a career, it's rare that I get the chance to do that these days.
3. I don't know what my journals are for. I hardly ever reread them. Should I?
4. I don't know what I would want to happen to my journals whenever I die. Would I want them destroyed? Would my children ever be interested in them as family lore? If so, do I need to keep an eye on posterity and be judicious about what I write?

I'd appreciate any insights.

posted by Leontine to Writing & Language (15 answers total)

check your MeMail
posted by HuronBob at 10:07 PM on October 28, 2014

I love this question. I have some of the same issues. At your current stage in life, though, couoldn't your journals be about the growth of your children? Your progress at work? The knowledge you've gained as you've grown into an adult?

I have two suggestions for you.

1. Morning pages. Yes, I recommend these to everybody. It's like a meditation practice — you won't see the effects until you make it a habit. Set aside an hour of your morning each day, undisturbed, to do this. It might mean you have to wake up an hour early.

OR

2. 10-Year Journal. You can buy these on Amazon. (They also make 5-year journals.) I've been keeping one since 2007, which covers the final year I lived in Koreas, my move back to the states, my exploration of Texas, my entry into a new career and more. Each morning I write the entry for the previous day, and read back through that day's past years. It's fascinating and fun to revisit my history and it only takes a few minutes a day.

I actually do both of the above, though I don't often go back and read my Morning pages. It's funny you asked this question because I just (10 minutes ago) read this article on how writing down even the most mundane aspects of our lives can give us insight later in life.
posted by Brittanie at 10:45 PM on October 28, 2014 [2 favorites]

I kept a journal pretty diligently when I was a bit younger. I never went back to re-read it. It was more a place for me to think think through things a bit. The act of writing it down and organizing my thoughts in a written way seemed to provide clarity to me. What I wrote wasn't actually that important, so it makes sense that I rarely re-read it. It was the act, not the product. (And it should be noted, it had to be handwritten. It was a personal, intimate thing, keeping a journal of my innermost thoughts, and writing it by hand helped in that regard. It also made the thoughts appear on the page less immediately, so I could process things more. Sitting at a computer and doing it would've felt like work.)

The thing is, at some point I didn't need it anymore. The struggles and soul-searching and questions I had back then are just not part of my day-to-day anymore. I shredded my journals so no one could read my deepest, most personal thoughts and I've moved on. (It felt important for me to be entirely honest and unfiltered in my journals.) Now, I spend my free time on other hobbies that allow me to be creative, including writing -- but writing for an audience. I don't write for myself or about myself anymore, but now I channel that into something different where the writing is in line with where I am now in life's journey.

Some people may disagree and espouse the virtues of consistent journaling, but I think it's possible it may not be something you need in your life. As long as you have ways to express yourself and be creative, I don't think the journal is absolutely necessary. You don't want to get into a rut where you aren't putting energy and focus into something that you enjoy that is just for you, but just because you don't keep a journal doesn't mean you don't have ways to do that.
posted by AppleTurnover at 10:50 PM on October 28, 2014 [3 favorites]

I highly recommend re-reading your earlier journals. I'm in the process of re-reading my early journals (I call them "captain's logs") starting from the mid-1980's and find them fascinating. So much I absolutely do not remember. Other things I definitely do. They provide an insight into what the world was like for me then.

When I got into computers in the early 90's I started logging digitally, and still do to this day.

As for the time allocation, if you're spending a lot of your time in front of a computer screen, to turn it off for a half hour or so. That's all you need to jot down a few thoughts and words.
posted by rmmcclay at 11:04 PM on October 28, 2014

I think that within your question you give 4 good reasons for not journalling anymore. I'd leave it there, really. Try to work out why you thought it was important, otherwise, and then work out if it is worth sacrificing something else to make it happen, or if there is something else/some version of it you can do as a compromise.

Also, consider that maybe your marriage is providing a lot of the mental processing space that you needed in grade 4.
posted by jojobobo at 1:11 AM on October 29, 2014 [2 favorites]

I kept a journal sporadically from my mid-teens through to my late twenties, then picked up the habit again in my mid-forties. The fifteen-year gap in the middle of vol. 12 roughly corresponded to the time I was married. I stopped in part due to your reason #2, a lack of time and privacy, and in part owing to some contradictory impulses where (i) I felt I should share my innermost thoughts and feelings with my spouse, rather than commit them to writing and/or (ii) I wanted to keep some of my innermost thoughts and feelings entirely to myself, and not commit them to writing where my spouse might discover them.

Like you, I do not know my journals' purpose. However, I do find it variously embarrassing, illuminating, and entertaining to revisit my old self in them. In some ways, the less compelling the narrative of my life, the more interesting my journals become, and vice versa. For me, the more I've had to write about, the less chance I've had to reflect on & write about it. My life now is as humdrum as could be, and yet I still find worthwhile subject-matter in its minutiae.

Your point #4 is an interesting one, and the questions therein have no good answers beyond 'it very much depends'. I'll not make any plea for my scribblings to be burnt or buried with me, but then I'm fairly confident there's nothing toxic or explosive in them that might harm potential future readers, and, moreover, no-one (least of all me) has any investment in my posthumous reputation.
posted by zmacw49 at 3:33 AM on October 29, 2014

Keep a gratitude journal. Here are some suggestions on Amazon on how to do just that.

It keeps you focused on the good stuff in your life, and gives you a daily exercise to "fill in the blanks".
posted by John Kennedy Toole Box at 4:56 AM on October 29, 2014 [2 favorites]

When I lived with my ex for almost three years, I stopped journaling. Prior to that, I kept a journal and I wrote in it almost every day. When I lived with her, I never got a moment alone. Even if she was in an opposite room, doing her own thing (even writing in her own journal), I never felt like I could flip the switch in my brain that let my unfiltered personality come out. Looking back, I also remember times when she asked about the journal, made joking-but-not-joking comments like "You're not writing about me in there, right?" and so forth. Probably pretty typical stuff. But I wonder if your brain is like mine – the unfiltered stream doesn't come out unless you are truly alone, uninterrupted, unmonitored.
posted by deathpanels at 5:47 AM on October 29, 2014 [4 favorites]

Keel's Simple Diary is short, doesn't require narrative, and usually makes me think about my day in a slightly different way.

Another possible approach that could do the same thing: 1 Second Everyday. You can set it to remind you daily.
posted by gnomeloaf at 7:14 AM on October 29, 2014 [1 favorite]

I try to write at least a sentence every day. Even if it's "2387th verse, same as the first". I've also set up an If This, Then That script that saves all my Facebook updates to Evernote, so even if I am in a "I don't feel like journaling today" mode, I at least have saved something that I've written from that day.

I haven't read any of my past journals, ever.

My sister knows that when I die, her first job is to go into the spare bedroom in our house and remove the metal lockbox that is sitting on the top shelf. What she does with it after that is up to her - she can read them, burn them, show them to my son. I trust her to do what's best, and therefore don't feel the need to censor myself.
posted by Lucinda at 7:18 AM on October 29, 2014 [1 favorite]

Journaling is hard, and there are days that I loathe doing it. But for me it's a way of being mindful of the present, and simultaneously of the passage of time, both the receding past and the onslaught of the ever-faster future. It forces me to look at the day closely even when I'm too tired or exhausted or don't want to.

But it shouldn't feel like a chore, either. That's a hard balance to strike. I've gone years without writing anything down because it got to feel too much like drudgery. I wish I could say at this point in my life that I've found how to strike the balance but I have never found it. But I persist in journaling anyway. No audience in mind, just because it's my life and I want to write about it, no matter how boring it is, and I love to write. For me, it's actually these days frequently an exercise in finding ways to write about the boring and the mundane, even when I'm bored to tears: because let's face it, most of life after a certain point is exactly that.
posted by blucevalo at 9:01 AM on October 29, 2014

Although I'm currently not a journal writer, here's a small point of consideration: As I progress into my late 40s, I have been more frequently beset by fits of observation, and self-examination. These aren't deliberate- they're just passing thoughts that contain a bit more insight than they would have, say, 10-30 years ago. They could almost pass as, I dare say, wisdom. I'm finding some comfort in this. Perhaps you could, too. I'll bet documenting said thoughts could not only help you clarify them, but give 'hard evidence' of your progress as a person by comparison to the old.
posted by JulesER at 12:00 PM on October 29, 2014 [1 favorite]

I think it's mostly 2. Mid-life is, for most, a time for action and engagement, and maybe not as much for reflection, compared to youth and later years, when we're less involved in obligations and perhaps more driven to make sense of things.

(I think that's what journalling can do; it's a curiously modern way of fulfilling existential needs by giving us a space to impose [a single] narrative on our piecemeal experiences, allowing us to feel there's a continuous arc through life. I agree with you that putting things down on paper offers the hope of a kind of legacy that will survive us - it's a way of saying, "I am here and matter". I think it can be a worthwhile exercise, and it's of course possible that your kids and grandkids would find value in your journals, why not? We often see questions here from people thrilled to have found these kinds of documents. How should a sense of audience affect how you write, if you choose to? I don't know - you could write and see how you feel about what comes out.)

But, it takes time, energy and mental focus to pull out of the exchange of the day-to-day and take a perspective on your life. And as Apple Turnover and jojobo have said, it might be you're actually hashing things out in real time, through conversations with your SO and others. That's not less intrinsically valuable than writing; recognition of your experience by living people you care about is highly rewarding, and more important, in a lot of ways.

(And/or it might be you're dissipating the urge to get things down, in bits and pieces, or using less time-intensive proxies, through social media, like a lot of us do, sometimes on this site, for example.)

I think if it's important to you to write, just do your best, and don't beat yourself up when real life overtakes that time. Documenting life is secondary to living it, in the opinion of this lapsed journal writer.
posted by cotton dress sock at 2:20 PM on October 29, 2014

A few thoughts:

1. Writing can help you work through your feelings. Maybe what you're reflecting in your first point is that you've developed other ways of working through things, and you don't need a to do this by writing anymore.
2. As to why we journal: the diary of Samuel Pepys is a singularly important historical document. Not every journal is Pepys-level, and it seems as though documentation is so much easier these days, but maybe Pepys thought the same thing about his own journal. Who knows what isn't being recorded, until time passes and we realize it's missing?
3. What if you changed the target of your writing, and wrote for your children? What if you started writing stories for them, or if each day you took an episode from your old journal and commented on what it meant to you, how it changed you, or what you learned from it?
posted by MrBobinski at 5:45 PM on October 29, 2014

Response by poster: Thanks for your answers everyone. I don't want to mark any one as best, because they all have given me something to consider and think about.
posted by Leontine at 2:08 PM on November 14, 2014