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Respected Contributor
Posts: 4,520
Registered: ‎03-04-2012

Re: A lifetime of personal journals - what to do?

Last year I read through mine, then destroyed them.  I don't want my family to know my private thoughts.  (funny, I couldn't even remember some of the things I wrote about - it intrigued even me!). 

Honored Contributor
Posts: 17,892
Registered: ‎07-03-2013

Re: A lifetime of personal journals - what to do?

I would read it, then destroy it.  

Valued Contributor
Posts: 666
Registered: ‎09-05-2014

Re: A lifetime of personal journals - what to do?

No one needs to the know the crazy that goes in my head that is why I never kept one.

Respected Contributor
Posts: 2,140
Registered: ‎07-01-2012

Re: A lifetime of personal journals - what to do?

Consider destroying them.

 

By having the chance others may read your journels you leave the interpertation of what you wrote up to them. Their conception of matters might be entirely different from what you were actually feeling ,meant, or wrote .

 

It could lead to misunderstandings, questions and wrong interpertations never to be answered. Maybe someone would be hurt.

Honored Contributor
Posts: 43,246
Registered: ‎01-08-2011

Re: A lifetime of personal journals - what to do?

Housecat, keep them when you want to stroll through the past.  Your DILs may want to share the person that you were at their age if you care to share.  

 

We journal for a variety of reasons.  As long as it relieved your stress, gave you some peace, or helped you in other ways only you can tell.

Respected Contributor
Posts: 3,355
Registered: ‎03-09-2010

Re: A lifetime of personal journals - what to do?

i have shredded my journals after rereading them. The only person who they are important to or would understand or appreciate them is me. 


'I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed man'.......Unknown
Trusted Contributor
Posts: 1,396
Registered: ‎03-16-2010

Re: A lifetime of personal journals - what to do?

I guess I am the odd man out. If my mother had kept journals, I would have loved to have them to read after she passed.

To have something in her own handwriting, just life in her own thoughts. Events. The trials and tribulations she went through. The happy. The sad. The man she loved so much in high school she talked about often. I always thought he was really the man she should have married.

 

Kids never seem to realize we are humans first. That we had a life before them. I would have a better understanding of who my mother was as a woman. She had a difficult life, but I only know bits and pieces.

 

I would ask your son if he wants them. They may end up to be very precious to him. But I would put the stipulation that he get them after death, unless you are comfortable answering any questions he might have. Leave the decision up to him if he wants them, and you make the decision of whether he gets them now or later.

 

I have nothing of my mother's. My Dad cleaned every bit of her out of their house without notifying any of us kids. I am still angry at that.

 

 

Esteemed Contributor
Posts: 7,645
Registered: ‎03-28-2015

Re: A lifetime of personal journals - what to do?

I agree....read them and then destroy them.

Honored Contributor
Posts: 20,163
Registered: ‎10-04-2010

Re: A lifetime of personal journals - what to do?

If it's yours and you plan to put it in book form to share with others that's one thing. If it's a family member, read if you like, but as the others said, destroy it.

 

I have to laugh when on clearing out my own mother's things, things of her interest, were not mine. She never said, this is to share for all of you. As my sister said, leave her personal thoughts to her and destroy anything she wrote.

 

I know I've journaled. I wouldn't want some family to read it. Therefore, I shred it.

JMHO in my life.

Honored Contributor
Posts: 15,523
Registered: ‎09-01-2010

Re: A lifetime of personal journals - what to do?

I kept a journal from the 90's until 2004.  The purpose was more for stress relief, and a way of passing time on my 11-7 shift.  

 

I read the journals after I retired, which were filled with a lot of work and family drama.   My words brought back a lot of memories and feelings--good and bad--that I'd long worked thru and let go.   I saw no purpose in saving the journals, and shredded every one.   No regrets.