Journals from a Past Life

I had a great idea the other day, or so I thought. Every so often, I would take excerpts from my old paper journals and translate them here to the 3 o’clock Coffee blog. These journals chronicle my college years, roughly from 2000-2003.

The journals hold many stories. Some are good. Towards the end, most are sad. There are collages of photo journalistic images I found inspirational, funny clippings from newspapers and magazines, even some poignant cookie prophesies. I am not ashamed about what I wrote over those years, nor do I regret any of it. However, I have found that many of the entries aren’t blog friendly.

I have named names.

Rereading these entries, the real meaning behind the stories has long eluded me but I can only assume that they are based on some basic information I had learned that day.


Some entries just don’t make any sense: “10-9-01: Notes or Marinette, I never got this email. He is a futurist. ‘ANAMONTAPIEA.’” Seriously like what the hell does that mean? I can only assume that it is from one of my many Art History classes, since I tended to use my journals for note taking. During class I used write crappy poems by writing down every 3 words from the lecture. I was also an aspiring writer. I found the first chapter of a story I was writing. It starts out with 2 sisters. One sister is asking the other if it was OK to date her ex-boyfriend. I wonder where I was going with that story, it sounds kinda interesting.

I wrote movie reviews, book reviews (after reading Motley Crue: The Dirt, I must have felt bad for Nikki Sixx. There are 3 whole pages on him), comments on current affairs (9/11), sketches for my classes at UArts, and much (too much) rambling about some dude name John (who apparently worked at a camera store).

So what do you do with old journals? One entry stated, “I always thought my journals would make a good movie” but as I read through them now, I notice they are only the laughable dreams and pent up anger of a person who no longer exists. They aren’t funny anymore. It seems that I am missing out on the inside joke of my younger self.

I am not sure what I to with them. I don’t want them any more. They conjure up feelings that I am not sure I should relive. Bitterness and anger are so prevalent in one, which makes it painful to read. But I feel bad to just throw them away. For better or for worse, they are moments in my life.

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