Personal Story – My Lost & Found Journal
I was recently at a meeting at our local library, where I love to work from time to time. I was there for a late in the day meeting on Friday afternoon, and I had lots of things at the meeting – my phone, computer, chargers, water bottle, books, binder, notes file, my Daytimer calendar, and my journal. I had a backpack and my waist pack. It was a lot to keep track of. I was tired and hungry. The meeting was somewhat intense as my writing mentor was guiding me through an “energetic and emotional clearing process” as part of advancing my adoptee memoir.
I was rushing at the end of our meeting to gather everything up as I needed to meet my son at the gym, to head to our next thing together. I also wanted to get home to meet my honey for happy hour in our garden and enjoy a relaxing glass of wine to wrap-up what had been a full week on many fronts!
I did make it home and we enjoyed that time together in our garden. We had dinner. Went to bed relatively early after watching an episode of The Bear (if you have not seen this series, you can find it on Disney+ – it has really great acting, wonderful writing, and has been nominated for 23 Emmy awards, or something like that!). I digress…
The next morning, I woke up early, at 5:00 am as I always do. I never use an alarm (unless I need to be sure to wake-up to catch an early morning ferry off the island or the like). I got up, turned on the coffee I set-up the night before, snuggled our sweet Sadie girl, and then went to get my journal from my backpack that I had at the library meeting the day before.
I opened my backpack, reached in, and I couldn’t find my journal. I always put it in the same place in my backpack. I started rummaging around throughout my pack and could not see it. I went to turn off the coffee pot that was now boiling on the stove. I poured my espresso from the shiny silver pot, a new coffee maker that Peter just got for his birthday from our boys a week ago, as the same maker that we have had for years stopped working. It was well seasoned and made thousands of cups of coffee over the years!
I went back to my office with my coffee in hand, in my favourite mug that reads “Caffeinate and hope for the best.” I love messages of optimism and inspiration throughout my day, including on mugs and stickers and quote graphics, etc. I searched in the regular place I keep my journal, went back to one of my favourite journaling places in our living room, and was scanning every where to see if I maybe had set my journal down and forgot about it. It wasn’t turning up anywhere!
I started to feel uneasy. I started to think about what I have written in my journal of late. I started to feel a sick feeling at the thought of someone reading my innermost, private, and intimate thought and feelings. I went back to the kitchen and asked Peter if he’d seen my journal. I told him I think I might have forgotten it at the library. He said reassuringly, “don’t worry, if someone found it they would turn it in at the desk at the library.”
I was not so sure about that. I was fixated on the thought of it being read and how violating that would feel, how exposing and not good.
I am not the type of person who wants my journals read or published or shared after I die. In fact, one of my dearest friends, Kelly-Ann, has instructions to have a burning ceremony for my many storage bins of journals after I die, assuming she outlives me. Peter knows to package them up and get them to her securely. These instructions are basically in my Will. I don’t want my children or grandchildren (should I have grandchildren someday) or my friends or strangers to ever read my journals.
With this sick feeling growing in the pit of my stomach, I returned to my back pack and started emptying everything out of it. And there at the bottom of the bag was my somewhat bent journal that had been shoved into the bottom of my pack by laptop, in my haste to hurriedly pack everything up after my meeting in the library.
I felt a wave of relief and called to Peter, two rooms away in our home, “I found my journal.” I am not even sure if he heard me but it felt good to call it out. I felt like all was right in the world, in this brief moment of realizing that my journal had not been lost, had not been read by strangers, and was right where it belonged, back in my hands again.
I try to always hold my journals lightly. I bring an intention of curiousity and ease and joy and openness and honesty and wholeness to the ways I fill its pages. In the moment that I thought it might be lost, I felt a desire to hold my journal tight. My journal is not just a record of my days, it is the transcript of my soul speaking to me and through me, day after day, week after week, year after year. Journaling is not just something that I do, it is part of who I am.
I’m so glad I did not lose that part of me, nor have it read without my permission by a stranger. I would rather stand naked in front of some unsuspecting library patron than have the pages of my journal in their hands. And that says something, because I don’t really like getting naked in front of strangers ;)
Tips to Keep Your Journal Private & Safe
Whether you keep a handwritten journal or a digital journal, there are many ways to keep your journal private and safe including some of the following:
For Handwritten Journals
- Use a lock and key – do you remember those small journals with a lock and key that you might have used when you were a child? I had a treasured little pink journal with a lock and key that I always tucked away in my desk drawer in my bedroom. It always felt extra secure with that little lock and key it was designed with. I have never had a lock and key with my journal since those childhood days of keeping a diary, but one could use this method for keeping their journals more secure.
- Keep your journal in a safe space – give some thought to a safe and discreet spot where you can keep your journal. This minimizes the likelihood someone might find it and read it, if that is a concern to you. You can also rotate the location that you keep your journal so that it is not as easy to find. Some people store their journals in locked safes or filing cabinets for secure keeping.
- Avoid discussing it – don’t discuss your journal’s existence or contents with people who might be curious or who you don’t fully trust. It’s ok to have your journaling practice as something you keep personal and private for yourself.
- Use a journal cover or disguise it – some people create covers for their journal to make it look like something they are reading versus writing in.
- Put your name and contact information in your journal – it can be helpful to include your contact information in your journal along with a note that says “This is a private personal document. If found, please return to …”
For Online Journals
- Keep a password protected journal
- Update your passwords periodically and use a password manager to keep them securely
- Encrypt your personal journal
- Back up your journal
Journal Prompts
Here are some journal prompts you can use to explore your own needs for privacy in the pages of your journal…
- Have you ever lost your journal? Write about what that experience was like for you.
- Have you ever found someone else’s journal? What did you do with it?
- How do you keep your journal private and secure? Is it important to you to keep it private? Why or why not?
- Ideally, after you are gone, what would you like to have happen with any journals you have kept over the years?
- Why is your journal and your journaling practice meaningful to you?
“If you want to write, you need to keep an honest, unpublishable journal that nobody reads, nobody but you.”
— Madeleine L’Engle
Leave a Comment Below – I would love to hear from you!
Feel welcome to leave a comment below about any experience you might have had with losing or misplacing your journal, and/or tips you have for keeping a journal safe and secure. Privacy matters when keeping our most personal thoughts and feelings in the pages of our journals!
Author: Lynda Monk, MSW, RSW, CPCC, is the Director of the International Association for Journal Writing, an inspirational community for journal writers worldwide. She is passionate about the healing and transformational power of journaling. You can learn more about our IAJW member benefits and join us here >>
I’m so glad this had a happy ending, Linda! I live alone and my adult children do not read cursive well at all, so I have felt safe. I will think over some additional methods for keeping my written journal secure.
That’s funny – my boys have not learned cursive writing in school, and while I wish they would have, one of my thoughts along the way has been “well at least they’ll never be able to read my journals!” ;)
“Journaling is not just something that I do, it is part of who I am.” I felt that deeply! It’s going into my quote list for 2024, that I do keep track of in my journal!
I left a gratitude journal in a hotel room several years back. I didn’t get it back. At least it was filled with wonderful things that I was thankful for!
Steve
Hi Steve, I’m honoured to make your quote list!
Great advice! Thanks for sharing!
Hi Michelle :)
I love this story, especially the happy ending that you found your journal after all.
It’s amazing to think that these companions we create in our lives actually then have a life of their own.
Hi Beth, that’s such a great way to put it – our journals really do have a life of their own! Talk soon :) xo
Oh Lynda, how I feared for you and your journal and relieved you found it. How often have I sat at a mixed table in a cafe or on an airplane and covered my writing with my arm so my seatmate wouldn’t be able to read what I was writing, which is often not so very personal, maybe just about the weather or something I saw in a shop window, or maybe I’m copying down a poem I love. But the thing is, something very personal and private could appear at anytime given the way I have come to trust journal writing as an open path to all my thoughts. It’s those surprising moments of deepest truths that I want to allow to come as they will, without fear of an unwelcome eye then or at anytime.
Thanks for all your thoughts and good ideas.
Hi, Judy, I have done this same thing on an airplane. I think it is “those surprising moments of deepens truths” that keep me/maybe all of us – coming back to the page over and over again. I’m so glad we have connected in this big world. :)
I’m glad this had a good outcome. This is my absolute worst nightmare! I have misplaced my journal several times, with the resulting panic at the thought of anyone finding and reading it. I usually make a cover for my journal and embroidery “Judith’s Journal” on the front, which is a bit of a give away isn’t it? This brings me back to the question of what to do with our journals when we die? I’m still puzzling that one out.
Hi Judith, I was interviewed for an article on this very topic – what to do with our journals when we die – I will find the link and send it to you :)