I found an old journal on my bookshelf today.  Do you know what this means?  It means two things, actually.  One:  it isn’t with the 87 other journals I have held onto since I was 12.  Seriously, there are 87 of them.  And two: it survived the tumultuous packing-away I did when I left for Korea, (and I took at least a hundred books to Goodwill) and now it’s baaaack.  It’s the journal that won’t die!

Not that I want it to die, exactly, I just wondered why it was rogue, all down in the playroom like that, ‘stead of up on the 3rd floor in a tomb otherwise known as a plastic tote, where all the other journals hang.

The answer to the question I know you’re asking?  Is 1998.  It was written in 1998.  The year I got married.  It chronicles two important things.  One:  being a new-ish teacher.  I quote: I’m afraid to tell anyone that I loathe teaching, that I am exhausted day in and day out and all the way through the weekend, too.  Is this normal when you are 25 years old?

And two:  planning a wedding. I quote again:  This is all just quite silly when really the only important thing is Guy and me together.  The marriage part, not the wedding part.  Nonsense is the…well, all the rest of it.

At its essence, this green fake suede 4×7 inch spiral bound notebook is a time machine.  A time machine in which I was willing to scream at the top of my lungs things that I didn’t want anyone to know.  Which is interesting, isn’t it, given the fact that I am still a teacher and I went right ahead and had a lovely wedding.

Which begs the question:  this not really listening to myself.  Has this been going on since 1998?

The answer to this question, since you’re asking, is no.

It’s been going on far, far longer than that.  Far longer than that, indeed.

There’s no pretty little ribbon to tie around that thought, now is there?