About a year or so ago I stopped keeping a journal. And, when I say stopped keeping, I mean keep as in both senses of the word. Let me explain.

I began writing my life in a journal in my teens. I stopped for a while in my late teens and early twenties, then later in my twenties, took to it again. I then kept my Journal going ever since. That is, until last year.

Of course, some periods saw a more intense, even daily journal keeping. And then there were periods where the journal only saw me every now and again. On the whole though, I’d been completely dedicated to my Journal for more than 40 years.

So, why suddenly end it? What prompted me to just stop keeping it – again in both senses of the word – after almost a lifetime committed to it?

Yes. A good, good question. First of all, it wasn’t a sudden decision; I didn’t ‘just stop’. For some time I hadn’t been feeling quite so committed, quite as excited about keeping a journal (as in using it to write my feelings, ideas, and essentially my life). And, just as with so many of the decisions we make thoughout our lives, this one had a practical, even a pragmatic ‘seed’ as well:

See the picture above? That’s my journal. The rest of the Old blue tin trunk would get itself filled with all kinds of stuff not needed on rhe road. The trunk lived with my cousin for a few years, then it was my sister’s turn; she had it on and off for many years.

As you are no doubt beginning to guess, this arrangement began to wear thin. We (the hermit pilgrims) were constantly asking ourselves, what’s the point of storing this stuff for years? Do we really need it?

My answer had always been yes. I needed my journal. I might read it again someday; I might need it to write books or whatever. So, we’d keep the trunk, filling the remaining space with stuff and things.

Then, on the penultimate occasion we had the old blue tin trunk shipped to us in our latest (then) current roadside cave, I looked at it, and thought: What’s the point?

Somehow the attachment – the compulsion to hold onto my Journal – had gone. It was a liberation, a freeing of my mind. I suddenly realised that the prospect of me ever rereading the thing, or needing it for some other purpose, was remote. Actually such a prospect was also extremely unappealing.

I should add here that that particular aversion and disinterest in rereading my journal, seemed to cement my already growing disinterest in keeping a journal in that sense I mentioned earlier of writing down feelings, ideas and so on. Now, both the idea of keeping the journal in the sense of storing the physical volumes for a rainy day, and that need to keep a journal by constantly writing my life, collided. Time to stop keeping!

So, I sat and leafed through every volume, more as a kind of farewell ritual than anything else. I did ‘rescue’ the odd bit and piece, most of which have since gone the way of their host volumes. Then I simply set the lot on its way to oblivion.

I mentioned that this whole chain of events happened on our penultimate reunification with the old blue trunk; what about the ultimate time? Well, we’d kept it full of various pieces of art by both of us; with various household things; ornaments; and other stuff I can’t remember.

Repacking it to ship back to my sister’s as we got ready to move on from that particular cave, we both just said, let’s leave it all behind.To cut a long story short, that’s exactly what we did. My son, a couple of charity shops, and the house we’d been sheltering in, were all recipients of the last of the contents of that old blue trunk – and the blue trunk itself.

Now, do I miss my journal? Well yes and no.

No I don’t miss having the thing as in owning it. Or maybe it’s better to say I don’t miss always having it in storage and out of reach the great majority of time. Like I said, I went completely off the idea of holding onto it – keeping it – just in case someday I might want to read it all again or use to for research. Now I think, why would I ever want to do that? (okay, I think I might have already said that)

The yes is kind of qualified. Yes, I miss writing in it. Yes I miss having a vehicle for expressing feelings, thoughts, and ideas.

I say that this yes is qualified because while I say this to myself from time to time, I don’t actually seem to ever really feel it. So perhaps it’s less a yes and no than it is an unequivocal no.

Besides if I have the urge to write, to put pen to paper, fingers to keyboard, then there’s nothing to stop me.

After all, that’s precisely what I’m doing now isn’t it?