The Adventure of Life

     I remembered today a line from Cranford (a good BBC miniseries; definitely recommend) that I thought was interesting.  One of the characters describes a method of diary-keeping where you write in the morning your expectations of the day (I will hit snooze thrice, eat breakfast in the car, go to work, come home, get the mail, eat dinner, hopefully do laundry. The end.), and at night you write about your day as it happened.  I think this would be a fun way of keeping a journal, because it would show just how unexpected life is, and just how many things happen that we do not expect.  Not every day will have a crazy story, but a lot of days will have unexpected blessings and adventures.  When an old acquaintance reaches out and you guys talk for the first time in almost a year, write it down!  When your sister sends you a stick-figure drawing in the mail for no special occasion, put that one down, too!
     Writing down all the negative things in your journal is important-- those thoughts have to get out of your head somehow-- but I think it's also important to record the other things, especially the small things.  My high school journals are an entertaining read (for me, anyway; not going to publish those cringe-comedies), and they definitely take me back, and remind me of some fun moments in the past that I'd otherwise forgotten about.  The same is true of my Rome journal.  Seeing as how I write in physical journals and I don't throw them away, I want to be able to have entries-- or at least parts of entries-- that are a pleasure to read when I open them in twenty years.  Because will I be looking at my old Facebook statuses twenty years from now?  Probably not-- I doubt we'll still have Facebook (though I could be wrong), and even if I am, it's not the same as a tangible diary, and it's not as easy to navigate.  I enjoy posting on Facebook when something funny happens, and I like to see that it has made my friends laugh-- but I also want to save that on paper for my future self as well.
     I think this method would especially be good when things are not going well in life, because it would remind one that while things are tough, and not everything is fine, there are still good things in life that happen every day.  Some of them are because our friends and family love us, and some only because God loves us-- like that bright sunshine that makes the 17 degree weather bearable, or that random squirrel on your walk that can't just pick a spot in which to bury the acorn he's been carrying around.