Journaling: Time Capsule Your Life

I'll never forget New Years Eve in 2003.  We were moving out of our tiny studio apartment into a one-bedroom in New York City and we were going to start trying for a baby.  Two new things happening for that New Year of 2004.  But what was so symbolic about that day and that still gives me goosebumps?  We were in our old apartment, getting it ready for the landlord... and we were painting the walls white.  We painting a new beginning for someone else, and it was a fascinating feeling.  As we were saying good-bye to this old place... and painting the walls, we were getting it ready for a new couple, with their own new beginning.

 

 

New Year's always does that to me, it gets me thinking about all the new beginnings that will come with it.

 

 

Ever since I was a little girl, I loved New Year's Day.  It was a time to start anew!  A fresh start. A new chapter. I'm not talking about sitting down and making resolutions, I'm talking about actually thinking about the road ahead and knowing all the dreams and goals and possibilites that can and will happen.  It's a time in everyone's life where the impossible can happen... and it does.  But the very best part?  You least expect it.

 

 

I know most people do write resolutions down, and I get it, I do.

 

 

But for me?  I love to sit down and recap the year that just went by.  I go month by month and write down the things that happened that I didn't expect... sometimes they're amazing, sometime they're special, sometimes they're sad... but it's the chronicling of my life.  It's my year.  It's my life captured in moments and in words.

 

 

Think about some of the defining moments in your life.  Did you expect them to be when they were happening?

 

 

I smile when I think this because if I look back in my journal from 1998... I never expected to meet my husband on the Blue Room steps at Brown University on October 28, 1998.

 

 

I still get goosebumps when I look back at my journal from 2000... I never expected my first job to be working as an assisitant to Donna Karan.  Or... for that matter that I was living in NYC!  I always had dreamed of moving to Los Angeles, and NYC was never on my radar.

 

 

I look back at my journal from 2001... The year I was married.  I remember writing in early 2001 that I prayed for a warm day.  I laugh now because June 20, 2001 was the hottest day of the summer that year!  People were sweating their dresses off, it was insane!  Little did I know that I wouldn't have anything to worry about.

 

 

I look back in fondness at my 2003 journal... all I did was talk about wanting a baby.  I yearned for one and just wanted to have a healthy baby in next year.  My William was conceived right around New Year's Day of 2004.  Nothing makes me smile more than to look back at my 2004 journal and realize that as that year was closing out, I not only had my beautiful boy, but we were trying again for another!

 

 

I look back at my journal in 2006... and I'm thankful that I wrote down all about being pregnant for 3 weeks. I miscarried that baby, but the words and the love and the passion I felt for that baby is captured in words in my journal.  Those were hard words to look back on, but I am so grateful I wrote them. I then wrote about needing a baby so badly. I was so upset about my miscarriage that throughout the few months after my miscarriage, I wrote about the baby to be... the baby that would eventually come to us.  That was my Benjamin.  It is so special to look back and see the story unfold.  All captured in writing.

 

 

I look back to 2008... little did I know a baby boy would be joining our family that June!  I had a surprise pregnancy (the best kind), and I couldn't possibly imagine what life would be like with 4 boys... well, I do now.

 

 

And I look back throughout the 5 years of blogging.  The days when I would jot down ideas and goals and dreams and never quite "know" what the future would hold.  It's pretty cool to look back now and to see the passion and the dedication and devotion I have always had for social media, for the community of mom bloggers.  It's what fuels me. 

 

 

New beginnings are all around us. 

 

 

But there's something so utterly incredible about having a day where all your hopes and dreams can be time capsuled. For me, that's New Years Day.

 

The new beginning of a new year.

 

Who knows what 2012 will hold.

 

Who knows where we will be next 2012.

 

Who knows what we will be doing.

 

What will change?

 

What will be the same?

 

It's the questions that excite me.

 

It's the not knowing that gives me goosebumps.

 

Sit down in the first few weeks of 2012 and time capsule your life.

 

I promise... you will look back 365 days from now and smile.  Write down the littlest of details and the biggest, those will be the moments you are happy you captured.

 

Happy News Years everyone!

 

May be it bring you all the happiness, joy and goosebumps you desire!

 

 

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