Writing, The Culprit

Through college and high school, I kept a very detailed journal with thought-provoking entries regarding boys, family, friends, but mostly boys. In the last several years, my journal writing has waned. And I'm sorry for it because these are the years I know I'll never want to forget.

The thing is, I can't recall details of a memory easily. So when something AMAZING happens, something I NEVER want to forget (which is EVERY day since I'm the mother of young children) I think, "I should write that down."

And most of the time I don't.

Then ALL these amazing moments crowd my heart and I'm afraid of losing them forever. Because I'll forget. But usually when I go to write, I open my book instead of my journal. I spend an hour in my book, and then in the end I think, "If I'm choosing writing about my pretend-world over writing about my real-world, am I making the wrong choice?"

Then again before I started writing, my journaling was already on the decline. So if it wasn't writing, wouldn' t it be something else? (Reading, movie-watching, scrapbooking...?) (For the record, I'm the world's worst scrapbooker.)

Have you found the balance between journaling and writing?

(Do you ever blame writing for taking the place of something else...maybe something else that you can really do alongside writing?)