and this song of mine in three-quarter time

Time.

Time does strange things to one's memory. Always a witty individual, Mark Twain said, "The faintest ink is stronger than the best memory." How true that is in my life today.

For a variety of reasons, many Things from my Past have been resurfacing (or dredged up, depending on how you look at it), and over the past several weeks I have spent much of my time at home thinking about, praying about, writing about, and effectively "dealing with" these Things. This morning I was bumbling about the apartment, not terribly motivated to get up and going, since I only have three small things to do at work and then I'm headed back to pack for Christmas in Michigan and get some last-minute shopping done. As I was putting gel in my hair, I had the inspiration to find a particular CD to listen to while I ate my raisin bran, and thus began a fruitless search. I really wonder where that CD is...but in the meantime I ran across an old journal, which I had been thinking about finding because I know a particular entry exists in the journal about one of the Things, and I wondered what the date was.

Abandoning my search -- oh wait, I just realized that the CD is here in my desk at work...aah... -- abondoning my search for the CD (which now, in retrospect, was a very good idea!), I instead picked up the journal and perused that during breakfast. I was astounded at what I found. (And I was astounded by how faint some of the ink was!)

As I look back and reflect on the Things from my Past, I have a certain sense of how I was feeling when I made particular choices and participated in various activities. But when I looked back in my journal to see what I was actually thinking (or at least was recording as what I was thinking)...I discover that the sense I have is wholly false. The way I think I was...is not how I was! I was surprised to discover common themes of questioning, searching, remorse, and a deep longing in my heart -- the most surprising of all was that these themes are nearly identical to ones I could find in my journal today!

That is not at all what I had expected to find, and it drastically changes my view of myself way back when. How is it that I have come to forget who I was? Have I been making excuses for or trying to explain away my "old" self for all these years? Has it been too hard for me to admit I really was who I was? And why oh why didn't I go back and read those journal entries sooner? Sure, they were from 7 to 10 years ago, but I actually had quite a few wise things to say back then -- I could really have benefitted from my own experience and advice!

But, perhaps one cannot fully appreciate the wisdom of one's own thoughts and ideas until she has marched on, experienced more, and can now bring the wisdom into the new contexts of her life.

All that said, I encourage everyone to keep a journal. You might hate writing, you might think journaling is stupid, but I for one think that it not only has immediate benefits (one entry I read said something like "Writing has benefits over talking to someone because you can sit and organize your thoughts and not worry about saying them the right way or having someone else ask you probing questions about what you're trying to say - you can just get them out!"), like clearing your head, but also serves as a remarkable resource for you when your memory fails. That happens when you get older. Believe you me - it happens even if "old" is only 26!!!