i'm feeling overly schmaltzy today.
do you ever go back and read your diary/blog entries/emails from last year? from two years ago? from four years ago?
do you ever wonder at how much one person can be so completely different from themselves after a little time passes?
not in only a bad way, or only a good way.
i'm thinking that more often, i should sit down and read backwards and think about the things that have been good about me and the things that have been bad about me and make notes. cultivate the good things, water them and put them in some direct sunlight, pull out the bad things and throw them on the burning pile, you know.
do some mental gardening.
i'm not just talking about one thing. a personality trait i don't like, or the way that i used to handle stress. i'm talking spiritually, creatively, relationally, mentally and physically. all of it.
because i've had good habits that have gradually withered up and blown away, bad habits that can take everything over in just a week of not taking care of them.
and it's amazing how much easier maintenance is than repair. right?
14 comments:
ugh, whenever I read my old journals, I get...embarrassed. About who I was. That's probably not a good thing, huh?
I read through my old entries all the time and I'm like, what the heck was I thinking?! Sometimes I'm kind of embarrassing. I like this mental gardening idea. And that last statement? Holy jeeze I could not agree more.
Yes, I do! Funny, I've been thinking something similar recently...
I've got to do this. Thanks for sharing. I love your writing - so motivating!
"and it's amazing how much easier maintenance is than repair. right?"
thank you for this genius.
I totally do that sometimes....play the year ago game. Love to see what was important to me back then. Usually it's like nothing I can relate to now but remembering how I was feeling is always insightful.
Sigh. yes.
I've thought this a lot of myself lately. "Remember that girl you used to be, Sarah?" How did you let those things slip away?
Mental gardening, what a brilliant phrase, may I steal it? I really love this post Suzy :) I feel like I'm doing a lot of gardening at the moment. It can get tiring at times but I'm sure it's what is keeping me so positive at the moment.
This year, I turn 24. On my birthday, I get to read a letter I wrote to myself when I turned 14, that I've been saving for TEN years. I can't wait!
I really need to do this--hopefully it will lay some questions to rest and lots of bad habits which I seem to have picked up without even noticing.
debbie & larissa: i'm sure we all get a bit embarrassed. just because the process of growing up means that you were more immature then than now and stuff. i get massively embarrassed reading anything i've written more than a year ago. but there are probably wonderful things about past-you too. if you can get past the youngness of it. right?
sarah: great minds think alike! :)
nicole: aw garsh! thanks. :)
chief: oh, don't call me a genius. i learned that from my car.
the best part of my day: i looooove the year ago game. and the five year ago game. and the ten. and the twenty...
sarah: exactly. half that and half, where did these horrible, annoying, bad, bad habits come from??
aw thanks suzy! you can for sure steal it. :) it is tiring, but it's very good for you, i think.
chess!!!! i love those kinds of things! my teacher had us write a letter to ourselves in grade 8, and promised us she'd mail them to us in a certain year. i can't remember when, but she'd better keep her word...
lottie: isn't it sad how easy it is to pick up a bad habit? they weigh almost nothing...
YES. good idea. I read back on old blogs and laugh at myself, cry at myself...
it's a good thing. we are ever-changing peoples, after all
I have saved up all the cards i got on my 18th birthday to be opened in 6 years after 18 years, i'm glad i have because i will have lost my grandparents and most of the friends i had at the time. you can be friends on facebook but it's not the same as sitting and having a good chat together. Now with being married with 3 kids i dont keep a blog but my old one is very funny to read, i'm like, who was that?
liz: it is good. if i was still the way i was when i was 15, we'd all suffer for it. :)
paving birmingham: that's a really good idea. there are so many things like that that i wish i'd held onto..
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