I know I’m a few days late, but I’m still in the first week of the new year so it’s all good.

My very first entry in a diary was in August 1993, I was 7.* I like to bring that up because it means I’ve been journaling for 16 (almost 17) years which makes me some kind of expert. I didn’t start journaling consistently until about 2000, which means I’ve been journaling for “only” 10 years… which still makes me some kind of expert. Anyway, I thought it would be nice to pull a page from each journal over the last decade to see how they’ve changed. I didn’t include some of my “lesser” journals like dream journals or glue books (there are only a few).

* In case you’re wondering: I hit my brother in the face with a swing (by accident!) and he had to get stitches and his front teeth fell out (baby teeth, fortunately). I wrote a little entry about how guilty I felt, and then I drew a sad, wilted flower.

My pre-2000 journals diaries, with little locks and everything! have gone missing. So the ones above are all of ‘em!

It’s long so check it out after the jump!

It was really hard to find pages from the earlier journals because 14 year old selves are pretty embarrassing.

2000-2001

2001-2002

2-6 2003

7-10 2003

11 2003 – 4 2004

5-12 2004

2-6 2005

7-8 2005

1-2 2006

2-4 2006

4-6 2006

6-8 2006

8-12 2006

1-3 2007

3-5 2007: this is where I started “art journaling” but as you can see it’s pretty bad!

more pages on flickr

5-8 2007

more pages on flickr

8-12 2007

more on flickr

1-3 2008

more on flickr

3-6 2008

more on flickr

6-9 2008

more on flickr

9-12 2008
more on flickr

12 2008 – 6 2009

more on flickr

6-12 2009

more on flickr

Current, started in October?

more on flickr

I don’t usually overlap journals but somehow it happened – now that I’m officially done with the 6-12 one, I’ll continue working in the one I started in October.

My rate of journaling is slowing down, but I (like to) think that the pages are getting stronger. Although I need to do something about the girl on right, words on left thing. As you can see, I’ve historically been more of a writer. My last year of college (2006-2007) was not a good year for me (to put it lightly) and I was unable to write. At the same time, I really wanted to express some things… I forget how I came across art journaling, but the idea of getting my feelings in some physical form without having to write them was really what I needed. My early pages were kind of destructive – in addition to the torn/paint splattered pages that are on flickr, there are a few un-uploaded ones that are just scribbles and burned pages.

I continued to do it simply because I enjoy it – I will probably shift back into writing eventually, but I really like where I am right now!

Here’s to another decade of journals!

January 5th, 2010 |