Retroactive Journals
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Are important chapters missing from your journals?

Journal keepers sometimes regret not having written during major events in their lives. These silences might have surrounded times we'd like to savor -- weddings, family reunions, our kids' first years -- or times we'd like to examine and then rip from our memories -- weddings, family reunions, our own school years. Maybe you were too busy or too bored, too happy or too wretched to sit down and write.

So, you didn't have time then to figure out what was going on. But it's never too late. Start a journal of the year you turned fourteen or your honeymoon or the early days of your business -- today.

List everything you remember about 8th grade, the summer before college, or those weeks in Europe. What do you recall most vividly? What do you wish you could remember? Do your memories make sense? Get it all down. Give it a title -- lyrical or perfunctory.

Why didn't you write in a journal then? Is there anything else you wrote -- letters a friend or relative might have kept? Fiction? An address book? A to-do list in a calendar? Class notes?

Photos: Collect and examine any photos from the event(s). Do you remember the moment they were taken? What were your thoughts then? Can you spot anything interesting in the background? How are the people in the photo getting along? What kind of impression do they make on you now?

You might put together a scrapbook page at this point, with captioned photos and any souvenirs or pieces of junk you have from that time period.

Research: What was in the news? What were you reading -- books, magazines, newspapers? What did you watch -- movies, TV, plays, on the street? What were the hit songs?

What were your interests or hobbies then? Don't forget to interview anybody who went through it all with you.

 

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text by Catherine deCuir 2001