The Joy of Finding My Favourites Pen That I Have Lost

It’s the beginning of a new year, which for a lot of people, means that it is time to start a new journal or diary. I’ve been wrestling with the decision of whether to stay traditional and keep my journal in a Moleskine, Rhodia or similar notebook, or go digital and use a diary app on my iPhone / iPad. Both formats have their own set of advantages and disadvantages. Is one way to better than the other? In this two part article, I’m going to try to answer that question for myself and maybe for you too. Part one covers traditional journals.
My journaling background
I’ve been an on again off again diary keeper since I was a kid. Back in the 70′s and 80′s when I was growing up, the only way to keep a record of your thoughts, memories and events was by writing them down on paper. I had several anything books as we used to call them… blank unlined hardback books meant to hold “anything”. I also had a couple classic lock and key type diaries that offered one page for each day of the year. I was even into 3×5 inch index cards way before they were cool. I used to keep a metal index card box labeled “Julie’s Secret Files”. Yep, I was a dork even back then… Nothing has changed folks

Childhood diary entries
The sad thing is that I can currently only find one of my childhood journals. I know the others are around here somewhere (hopefully). I just don’t know where. I sat down with that one diary this past weekend and reading it from cover to cover gave me quite a few laughs. 90% of it was filled with entries talking about how big of a pain my younger sister was and all my attempts to find and read her diary. Come on, that was very important stuff to a 13yr old! But mixed in with that silly stuff were a few nuggets that triggered long lost memories. Reading it made me wish I would have continued to keep a journal all these years. I especially wish I would have kept a journal this past year to record my cancer adventure.
Sticking with it…
Why haven’t I been able to keep a...