Keeping a Journal

I have this secret fetish for notebooks.  I have about 3 or 4 dozen big ones floating around my house.  I always stop by the stationery section at the store and look at them.  It's weird, I know. 

I bought one I really liked about 5 years ago, and then it sat in the dresser beside my bed, empty until 2009.  Then, I finally wrote in it.  Here's the first entry:

11 May 09

I was just thinking about some of the things I'd like to do in this life:

• Keep a journal.  I used to think it was necessary to write my entire life's history as a prerequisit for a journal, but now I see that was just an obstacle holding me back from what I really wanted to do.
• Learn French.  This is the catalyst that started me down this path.  I would love to learn French.
• Have a beautiful flower garden.  I want lilies, hyaciths and tulips.  Big, bright and fragrant flowers that bring out the sun.

It's funny - I used to want to go into space more than anything, but today it doesn't seem so important.  I'd rather

• Establish citizenship in a European country
• Tour Greece and see the ancient culture.

Maybe I wanted to go into space because I thought somehow it would bring me closer to God, show me some epic revelation about the universe that I had never imagined.  I don't think I need a trip into space to do that anymore.

But I still love the science behind how the world works. 

• Earn my BS in Engineering Physics.
• Learn to scuba dive
• Buy an old boat and restore it by hand while living modestly on a tropical island.
• Intimately know every aspect of myself and continuously work towards improvement.
• Be cleaner and more organized.
• Be more mellow, deliberate and patient.
• See the fruit of my relationship with God manifested more clearly in my personality traits and actions
• Be more patient with and tolerant of my husband.
• Be more pre-occupied with how I live my life than how others live theirs.

There's no reason I can't have/do all of the things I truly want out of life.  I want to know more truth, see more beauty and exemplify more goodness than I ever have.  I want to finally be free. 

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Nobody ever really told me where to start.  That's not a bad thing, I just think it can be overwhelming to some people at times.  I always wanted help finding the way- finding my path, but in all my searches, I discovered one important thing:

People can only tell you what worked for them.  Any suggestions you can hear are good, but nobody will ever be able to tell you what will work for you.  Your life is your own.  That empty book you've been holding onto is only your own to write.  That's a scary thing, but the most amazing and beautiful things this universe has to offer always are. 

I've been carrying that book around with me the last month.  When I decided to put it on here, I grabbed it out of my car.  When I opened it up, a piece of paper fell out and I learned something I never knew about it before.

It's a little piece of paper called, "The history of a legendary notebook."  It says:

"Moleskine is the legendary notebook used by European artists and thinkers for the past two centuries, from Van Gogh to Picasso, from Ernest Hemingway to Bruce Chatwin.  This trusty, pocket-size travel companion held sketches, notes, stories and ideas before they were turned into famous images or pages of beloved books.

Originally produced by small French bookbinders who supplied the Parisian stationery shops frequented by the international avant-garde, by the end of the twentieth century the Moleskine notebook was no longer available.  In 1986, the last manufacturer of Moleskine, a family operation in Tours, closed its shutters forever.  "Le vrai Moleskine n'est plus" were the lapidary words of the owner of the stationery shop in Rue de l'Ancienne Comédie where Chatwin stocked up on the notebooks.  The English writer had ordered a hundred of them before leaving for Australia:  he bought up all the Moleskine that he could find, but they were not enough."

Well, I knew somehow I shouldn't write in it unless it was important - but wow that's a legacy and a half to live up to!