Today was one of the very rare days that I decide to journal. I have a hard enough time blogging regularly, and my computer is always near me, so you can imagine how few journal entries I have. This used to bother me quite a bit, but the last time I got a new journal (its a WONDERFUL journal that my dear friend Elizabeth found on Etsy) I decided to turn over a new leaf. I decided that I would journal when I journal, and I would take notes and make mind maps when I have to make decisions, and I would draw pictures and write down those never ending lists of books to read and projects to finish. And I would do this all in the journal.
I often put the same pressure on journaling that I do on blogging. It has to be simultaneously witty and revolutionary, or at worst, it has to at least be good enough that it is more powerful than the types of quotes you find on the seniors page of a high school yearbook. I am fairly certain that my high school yearbook was peppered with “git er done” and lyrics to overplayed songs, so this shouldn’t be too hard, right?
Anyway, there are days, many days, when I am just not that glamorous. These days occur on about an average of 365 days a year. This is not to say that I never have thoughts that are deep, because I like to think that I have many of those. Sometimes I am even able to translate these deep thoughts into words enough to have deep conversations. I even have my funny moments. These moments and conversations and thoughts just rarely get written down.
So you can imagine my surprise when I open my journal and see that about 6 months ago, I did write something that was worthy of journaling.
When I finally mustered up the energy to get up off the couch and go get my journal, I opened it and saw this written inside:
“Am I doing this for the healing of the kids, or for my own healing and vindication?”
I was processing through what I wanted to do with my life. This is another topic, similar to blogging and journaling, where I need to learn to be content with less than perfection. I often end up coming to a conclusion because I need to decide, not because it is the right decision. Last August, when I was writing this entry that I am now looking at, I decided to not decide.
I was doubting if I should do Social Work. I was seriously doubting if I should. I was right to doubt. And I was right to not act on that doubt… not at the time at least.
Now I am ready to answer this question. I was doing it for myself. Me being a social worker for the long term is not in the best interest of the kids who I wanted to work with… and in truth, it is not in the best interest of me or anyone else around me either.
The details of this are coming tomorrow.
Today the journal entry was not anything deep, nothing like August. Just a boring old list of things that I need to do eventually to make myself a better person. You know, things like “pray more,” “floss your teeth more,” and “eat less bread.”
Anyway, I was feeling quite victorious, both for knowing that at one point, I wrote something special, and for being able to accept that I can write even when it is nothing special, and so I thought I would share.
