Somewhere, someone in Denver has a fantastic read. I, on the other hand, have lost about 4 years of my emotional life. My husband and I recently took a trip for our 10th anniversary - the first time we have been away on a trip like this since our wedding. Naturally, me being an avid writer, the first things I set out for the trip were my notebook (everyday stuff, ideas for the blog, to-do lists, etc.), the novel I was currently reading, my family journal (not to be confused with the 2 I keep for my youngest children-my oldest inherits all my journals), and my dream journal - reserved for dreams only, jotted down in no particular date order.
After arriving in Denver, the one evening I took out my journal because I wanted to record two things the kids said that were cute. Norah, my 4 year old, said to me "look at these feet Mom. They look like the feet of a 4 year old!" I also wrote down something awesome Pacey, my 5 year old, carefully relayed to me. I can't recall what it was though, and now I will never get it back. I left my journal in the hotel room somehow (even after a scan of the entire room) and it has not been returned, found, replaced, anything. I am absolutely crushed.
There are two things that disappoint me tremendously in my life. The first is that I will never know about my own childhood. The funny things I said, the crazy things I did, the way I empathized with others, the awful things I did, or how I got along with my father, who died suddenly of a brain aneurysm when I was just five years old. The second disappointment is that I didn't get to share life with my mother after I became a mother. Like many other mothers, I had no idea what life was all about until I had kids. Only then did I start to wonder about my experiences as a child, and more importantly wonder about my mom's experiences as my mother. I prayed that my mom left a long letter for me when she died at the age of 58, succumbing to the ferocious pancreatic cancer. But my mom wasn't a writer. I once found a journal she started after I moved away from home (I was the youngest, and the last to leave). There were 2 entries, each one sentence long.
But I am a writer. So my gift to my children is to always keep a record of their lives. Nothing big, nothing even consistent, but something. I try not to put pressure on myself because I think that makes a journal less genuine, the entries not as warm and spontaneous. Inside my lost journal are the struggles as a family that desperately misses maternal grandparents. Inside my lost journal are my struggles to keep it together when I really wanted to just give up. Inside my lost journal are the funny things my children said in the most formative years of their lives, the profound ways they care for each other, and the surprising ways they have cared for me when I needed it most. Inside my lost journal are many conversations I had with my mom, if only on pen and paper. Inside my lost journal are many "Goodnight Mom, I love you and I miss you."
Why would somebody want to keep another person's journal? Surely you can enjoy the read and return it? Definitely the most saddening Gap of all.
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