Sometimes people feel that a particular journal entry they have written is one that they never want to read again. They want to burn it, rip it into shreds, and do away with it totally.
I have a slightly different attitude: I think that all of my writing–good, bad, beautiful and ugly–reflect me in some way. I know I’m a complex person–and I think that each of is–and I accept that my entries are filled with good stuff and not so good stuff. So with that perspective, I think twice before I destroy any journal entry.
Mostly, I think that if I re-read an entry after some time passes, and with my compassionate-colored reading glasses firmly in place, I will see the situation or myself from a different point of view.
Tonight I came up with an idea that would let me have my cake and eat it, too. (That’s a favorite kind of solution—second to eating my cake and not gaining weight…)
The notion is to type your journal entry, in LifeJournal or in a Word document (if you must!). For those times when after writing an entry you think—geez, I’d like to rip this one up, here’s an alternative: If your background of the journal entry is white, then change the color of the text to white. Then, the entry is white on white and you can’t read it. UNTIL, of course, you change the text color back to black or some other color that allows you to read it. Keep the title in black, so you know what it’s about. And maybe have one sentence left in black with the warning: “POTENTIALLY TOXIC.”
That way you have in effect, deleted/removed/ripped up your entry—but if you are feeling like you want to re-read and understand your full uncensored self, then you can do so with just a simple manipulation of the text color settings.
Or, if you like, print the entry, and then rip it up, burn it, shred it, or destroy it in some way. There IS something cathartic about that physical act of destroying an entry that was filled with something that you want to expunge from your life.
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One Comment
This is a simple and brilliant idea. I often find I am not sure if I want to keep something - what if someone were to read it and nut understand the context or whatever. And, often, I delete. Now, what I have been doing should I go back and decide I want to delete it is to cut and past to a work processeing document, then secure it beyond what almost anyone can get into and go back a week or more later and decide. So far, I always put the entry back in, for my story is in complete without the entry. Your idea is just so much more simple. And, in reality, I don’t need the security, it makes the entry seem more integral to my story than it really is - when taken in context. Thank you for the great idea.