How to Make a Journal of Your Life

How to Make a Journal of Your Life | Dan Price

I finished reading through another ten volumes of my 25-year daily journal, so I got to have a little fire tonight. I‘ve reached 2004, in which I hit a LOT of weird little personal touchstones.

Gonna see if I can clear volumes 61-70 before I lose the privacy I need for this process. That‘ll take me past halfway through my 130-volume archive.

BookishMarginalia Wow! That‘s impressive! I‘m curious — do you still journal? 3d

xicanti @BookishMarginalia nope. I hit twenty-five years and said, “Yeah, that‘s it, I‘m done.” 3d

BookishMarginalia Liberation! 3d

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xicanti

How to Make a Journal of Your Life | Dan Price

A few years ago, I started rereading the daily journal I kept for twenty-five years so I could make note of important stuff and then burn each volume. I had a longer-than-anticipated gap in the process, but the conditions are right this week so I‘m back at it. Ten more volumes met their end tonight.

If you‘re all 😱, be assured I don‘t do this lightly. This journal is my mandala: something I had to make but don‘t have to keep forever.

Ruthiella I have a friend who did this. It makes sense to me. I actually don‘t want to read the journals of my younger self. They make me cringe a little. 1w

xicanti @Ruthiella there‘s definitely a lot of youthful ignorance in here. Also a lot of days where I wrote because I liked using my pen du jour, not because I had anything to SAY. 1w

Karisa 👏👏👏Your words, your choice! How did it feel? 1w

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Texreader This is amazing. Wow!! I kept diaries back in elementary school and they embarrass the heck out of me. I‘ve stuck them back in some closet. When I find them again they are getting “torched.” If I had been older and had nuggets of meaningful writings, I hope I‘d do the same as you. Such a beautiful thing. 1w

willaful @Ruthiella So much so! I kept my pregnancy journal but everything before it went into the shredder.
1w

Kenyazero I just read a book where a character did something similar! 1w

SamAnne Wow. I get this. I don‘t want others to read my journals when I pass. I‘m going through them this year. Burning sounds good! 1w

xicanti @Karisa it‘s been good. I‘ve now consigned fifty volumes to the flames. 1w

xicanti @Texreader it‘s a satisfying act. 1w

xicanti @willaful I‘ve ripped out and kept a few entries here and there, when they were personally significant. I think I‘ll probably keep most, if not all, the volumes I wrote when I lived in Auckland, but it‘ll be a while before I get that far. 1w

xicanti @Kenyazero I‘ve got a fictional twin! (Or a memoirist twin.) 1w

xicanti @SamAnne burning‘s so good! If I recycled them, I‘d worry someone would dig them out or something. 1w

BkClubCare Yeah, add this task to my to do list 😒 6d

xicanti @BkClubCare good luck! 6d

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