Spo-fans know I have long kept a paper journal. I started writing them in 1978 – at least that is the year of the oldest one I still have. Every year, usually between Christmas and New Year’s Eve, I go to a bookstore and buy a new one for the upcoming year. As bookstores disappear (as do paper journals) I now get them whenever I happen to stumble upon one.* Last week, Travel Penguin (the dear!), sent me one. On its cover, written in gold, is “Bad Ideas”. It is a large one, bigger than and frankly better quality than the ones I usually allow myself to buy. Its finesses made me wonder if this one might be ‘The Last Journal’.
For some years I’ve had a fancy to splurge and buy better one, one bound in leather with special paper. I see them time to time; some of them run into the hundreds of dollars. I would use it as ‘The Last Journal’. I would put it up on the shelf with the finished journals, allowing a large gap from the current one (on the left) and The Last Journal leaning up against the right side of the shelf. When would I write in it? In an ideal world, I would know I am dying and this is my last year alive. Then I would stop buying the simple ones. I would write – for the last time – using The Last Journal, knowing what I write would be my last. I would not fill it with mundane daily doings (as is my wont) but with ‘parting thoughts’, whatever they may be.
Of course, I have no idea when I will die – may it be a couple of decades from now! People seldom have the luck (good?) to know ‘this is the last year’ to plan accordingly. Chances are I will die quickly or even suddenly and not have a chance to use The Last Journal. The purchase of The Last Journal and putting it up where I see it with the other ones, slowly growing and closing the gap between them, serves another purpose. It serves as an “momento mori”, something that reminds me of my mortality. I think this is a good thing. It reminds me to write well and to fill these yearly journals with as much life events as possible.
I’ve changed my mind about Travel Penguin’s recent gift. “Bad Ideas” will be Journal 2023. When I write in it, I will think of him everyday. In July Urs Truly turns sixty. I fancy my birthday prize to myself will be The Last Journal, large, leather-bound, with metal adornments (like my men). It goes up on the shelf and starts serving its purpose.
*This works better. I remember the place and situation when I purchased the journal.
Spo-Reflections 
23 comments
May 28, 2022 at 7:29 PM
larrymuffin
I wonder if many years after your death would all your journals be published so that people could read them and get an idea of what you were really like.
May 29, 2022 at 7:18 AM
Urspo
I have long wondered what to do with these lofty tomes after my death.
It pains me future generations (particularly my relations) will be reading these ala Samuel Pepys. Oh the embarrassment.
May 28, 2022 at 8:02 PM
Debra She Who Seeks
Any fancy embossed leather journal I see (at craft sales or in spiritual bookstores) is usually a book cover, rather than a bound book. In other words, you insert a new paper journal in it every year, so that you can use the leather container (for lack of a better word) over and over again. I hope you find a beautiful leather journal for your “Last Journal” and memento mori.
May 29, 2022 at 7:18 AM
Urspo
I did not know this; I learned something.
I would like a proper journal that stays together, not just a cover.
May 28, 2022 at 8:23 PM
Bad Idea Lurker
I suspect this journal will be difficult to fill out. Are you even capable of harboring bad ideas? Usually we are the ones who have to supply those to you.
May 29, 2022 at 7:20 AM
Urspo
Nowadays my paper journals as mostly ‘log books’ of what I did/where and how. It isn’t reflective or detailed. I save that sort of stuff for blogging. Thus, not much bad ideas are in them. On occasion I ‘vent’ and disgorge my bile, more for purging than recording for posterity.
May 28, 2022 at 9:06 PM
DwightW.
Always good to have a plan. I wish I’d kept a better written record.
May 29, 2022 at 7:21 AM
Urspo
It’s been a fun exercise. It is not too late to start.
May 28, 2022 at 11:26 PM
Linda Practical Parsimony
You have given me a good idea!
May 29, 2022 at 7:21 AM
Urspo
Oh good! I like sharing good ideas.
May 28, 2022 at 11:47 PM
Moving with Mitchell
I wish I had kept a journal throughout the years. It would be a fascinating read (for me).
May 29, 2022 at 7:22 AM
Urspo
Back when my journals were more ‘reflective’, rereading them was somewhat painful. Either I was moaning over something that didn’t matter/turn out bad or looks ‘immature’. I suppose that’s a point: seeing how one has grown and survived.
May 29, 2022 at 4:06 AM
Ron
A lovely post about a worthy subject. I too keep daily journals. First time in the Seventies for eight years, ending in 1980 when a spurned paramour discovered my journal and tore out the pages about him and scrawling (in pencil yet!) a nasty missive about me (the nerve). I felt so violated that I decided never to put my personal thoughts in writing again. I changed my mind in April of 2007 and resumed my daily recordings if my now boring and mundane existence. Little did I know I had this much life experience left in me. I will religiously keep a journal until the day I die, whether that occurrence be a swift painless exit or a slow, painful humiliating exit. I however use the same journal book, bring the obsessive compulsive person that I am.
May 29, 2022 at 7:23 AM
Urspo
What a terrible story!
I admit I write knowing someone (present or future) may be reading this stuff.
May 29, 2022 at 4:49 AM
David Godfrey
I hope you enjoy it,
May 29, 2022 at 7:24 AM
Urspo
I enjoyed getting it; I will enjoy using it.
May 29, 2022 at 6:55 AM
Lori Hawkins
I love a good notebook. I used Leuchtturm1917 for years but the quality of paper changed. Now I use Dingbats as I LOVE the paper. It’s so smooth. I’ve kept journals since i can remember. I got rid of a lot of them from the past and I regret it.
Your new journal is lovely.
May 29, 2022 at 7:24 AM
Urspo
Dingbats did you say? I will go have a look-see.
May 29, 2022 at 8:31 AM
Robzilla, Native Of Slam Diego
I think the only time I wrote a journal was when my mother was dying. I tried to re-read it once, but stopped after awhile. It was just too distressing to see how I was even in the early stages of her cancer diagnosis. I’ll likely shred it one of these days and move on.
May 29, 2022 at 12:26 PM
Urspo
Sometimes a journal isn’t about recording things for posterity sake. they are about a means to get things out to work through something. After the exercise is over, the actual writing is no longer needed to keep.
May 29, 2022 at 4:03 PM
BadNoteB
I’d value your thoughts on the following not-entirely-hypothetical situation: a friend and business acquaintance is found dead, of natural causes, at his office desk by the building janitor one Sunday evening. Age 57, single for the last 6 years, father of 3 adult children conceived by three different ex-wives but raised by him. Another mutual friend and business acquaintance is named Executor of his estate and calls on me for assistance with dissolution of the business.
In cleaning out his office in preparation for a liquidation sale, an entire (locked) file drawer is discovered that contains a 24” stack of personal journals spanning over 30 years of life since graduation from college. Included are intimate details of 3 marriages and divorces, trials and tribulations of having custody and raising 3 children (including criminal records of one, sexual/drug/abortion histories of another, and emotional aberrations of the third) – you get the idea. We have no idea if – or to what extent – any of this was common knowledge or may be even known by various family members.
The children all live out-of-state and maintain on-again/off-again relationships based on petty jealousies and resentments, many of which are reflected upon in their father’s writings. Their only interest in the father’s estate (or death, really) seemed to be how big a check might be coming and when. No one seems aware of their father’s journaling hobby to have inquired about such documents.
The Executor’s question to me, and mine to you: what would you do with these journals?
May 30, 2022 at 5:39 AM
Urspo
Oh the dilemma.
A part of me sees journals like eyeglasses: highly specialized and no good for anyone else; when the person dies throw them out
The genealogist in me knows stuff like this is important for latter generations for research. I would box them up and not read them but give them to some descendent curious in their family tree.
May 31, 2022 at 11:02 PM
Sassybear
Your popularity in the blogosphere grows year by year. I envy that.
I wish I had kept a journal or diary of my life. I have forgotten so many things I would like to remember.