Most days, I have no idea what my daily blog post is going to be about until the sun is setting, and some days not for hours later than that. I’ve known what today’s post is going to be about, however, since I started these daily posts 200 days ago, because I’ve been looking forward to today for a long time.

You see, five years ago today, I started a journal, and I’ve made entries every day for the past five years. I haven’t missed a day. I started journaling about two months after Bonnie and I did a week-long cabbage soup diet. I felt better on that diet than I had ever felt in my life, and I wanted to try to pinpoint why.

I thought that if I could track everything I ate during the day, everything I did, everyone I talked to, how I felt, what the weather was like, and any other detail that seemed important, I could look back after a period of time, see a pattern emerging, and finally figure out why I’ve felt like shit my whole adult life.

About two hours after I started journaling, someone stole the catalytic converter off my van, and my insurance company looked like they were going to try and fuck me out of my claim, so I started taking notes about the conversations I had with everyone I talked to regarding my claim, and I was hooked.

Being able to look back in time and recall a conversation delighted my brain in ways that I can’t articulate. My journaling went into overdrive after that. I started writing down everything that I experienced: Things I saw on the bus, conversations I overheard in the store, descriptions of people who pissed me off and why, every movie and TV show I watched, book I read, place I went, food I ate, person I talked to, it all went in my journal.

It’s come in handy so many times, too. When I’m trying to find a picture or video clip and I can’t remember when it was taken, my journal does. When Bonnie is arguing with me about when the last time was that she made me watch The Mummy, my journal wins the argument. When I’m experiencing symptoms that I remember having days, weeks, or months ago, I can consult my journal and see what I ate that day.

My journal is almost like having a second brain or a time machine that can be summoned to review memories. I wish I had been journaling my whole life.

I made various attempts to journal at different ages and stages in my life, but nothing ever stuck because I didn’t know how to journal. My only frame of reference for journaling was the two sentences Neil Patrick Harris typed onto the blue background of his computer monitor at the end of each episode of Doogie Howser, M.D.

I didn’t know what the purpose of it was or who it was for, but I thought it needed to be profound and insightful. In my early attempts at journaling, I tried to write for myself, but I always thought about who might read it in the future, either nefariously, with my permission, or after I’m gone. That caused me to censor myself. When I was 23 and newly married, I tried journaling again, for myself, without regard for anyone who might read what I wrote, including my future self. When I went back some years later and read what I wrote about my wedding night, I was horrified. I tore the pages out of the notebook I used as a journal at the time and burned them.

None of my journal entries before July 20, 2020, survived, and that’s a bummer. I wish they had. Now, I understand the value of a journal, and it would be nice to be able to go back in time and see what I was thinking at various points in my life. I also wish I had carried a camera with me when I was younger, and saved answering machine messages.

You don’t realize how quickly memories fade until you look back at the record of your life and read about things that you have already forgotten. Of course, I don’t advocate for living in the past, but I think it’s extremely important to look back once in a while and see how far you’ve come. I mean, you don’t climb a mountain without ever pausing to look back to see how far you’ve climbed, do you?

Also, Bonnie and I went to see the new dinosaur movie, tonight. It wasn’t just awful, it was Sofa King awful.