Personal Narrative: My Journal Categories

Another one of my journal categories is my journal of friendships. Over the years I have encountered a lot of people—some are acquaintances, some are friends and some are dear friends. In my family, we had a friend named Sue who really was more like family than friend and so I consider her a ‘dear friend.’ Sue would go bike riding with us when were kids. She loved to bake, made all her own clothes (even her purses) and never seemed to be in a hurry. When I go back to read in my journal about our visits with Sue, I discover that back so many years ago when I was in my teens and even in my 20’s, I thought of Sue as being old fashioned. Now, as I read about Sue, I think she was a very wise woman of strength and good character. Sue didn’t change but I certainly did. Sue is no longer with us. She died several years ago but I have her memory in my journal as well as in my heart. It is nice to revisit those memories. I am glad I have my friendship journal to remind me of dear people like Sue.

If you choose to have a friendship journal, do include your celebrations, your squabbles, your laughs, and

When I was teaching, I had good days and bad days as any teacher will affirm that happens while working with children in the school setting. The good thing was that in my teaching career there were many more good days than the bad. Whenever I encountered one of the “bad” days I would turn to my journal for help. It might have been a tough day because the kids were just not getting a lesson that I thought I had prepared extremely well or perhaps there was a problem on the playground where children are sometimes mean to other children. So, whatever the “bad” day was, I turned to my journal to write about it. I could always see some clarity of an issue through my writing that would give me a solution to the problem or the difficulty I was