Are you completely and utterly honest in your journal? Do you edit or censor yourself?

This topic has been on my mind a lot, ever since the Susan Powell thing where her husband and father-in-law wanted to publish her journals to slander her, based on the things she wrote in them. She was honest in her journals, and now it seems to be coming back to haunt her.

I used to censor myself. I would omit certain things, or write things and rip them up, or not write at all. But I've come to value being honest and open in my journals.

When I'm gone, my family will read my journals.  I think about this often, and write what is in my heart. Most of my entries are positive. I write about childhood memories. I write about my thoughts and ideas and theories. I write about things and people that have touched my life. I write about important events, get togethers, birthdays, weddings, etc. I write a lot about my family members and friends and eventful things going on in their lives. Perhaps I'll write about a great conversation I had with a friend or things I learn in church or from my study that speak to me. I'll write about funny and cute things my little boy does and how he is learning and experiencing the world. I copy memorable quotes and write Thankful For lists occasionally.

But sometimes I write about the negative too. I write about my struggles and trials, about the pain/loneliness/sadness/fear/whatever is weighing on me. I don't exclude those. In fact, in some of my darkest times, writing it out is what saves me. It helps me clear my head and heart and puts me in the direction of a course of action. It's a problem solving method for me. There are a couple very personal things that will remain only in my head and heart and never reach the paper, but for the most part, I write about everything.

Here's the key when looking at a journal... it's a "whole picture" thing. You can't just snatch one event from the past or one entry in a journal and define a life from that. You have to look at a person's life as a whole picture, as the person they ended up as and the good they have done. Decisions and challenges and events shape us (based on how we handle them) but they do not define the entirety of our lives. Maybe that's why it makes me so sad about Susan Powell's journals. She was a good woman and mother and she had it together (at least outward appearances suggest this, we may never know). Whatever things she struggled with and wrote about, she apparently conquered. They were trying to assign labels on her character based on things she wrote about and overcame years ago. That's unfair.

I know the risks I take in being open in my journal. I am completely aware of the fact that people could read them and assign labels to my character (actually, that worry is always on my mind, as I constantly worry what others think of me). But I would hope beyond hope that if my family reads my journals and writings, they will take from them the whole picture- that they will understand that I share most things so they can see what I went through and grew from; so they can relate to me on a level they would be unable to if I deliberately left certain things out to paint a prettier picture of myself; so they can see I was a real person. I honestly and truly believe it would be a disservice if I wrote only rainbows and butterflies and things I thought they should read. They would be missing out on the good stuff, on the lessons I learned that they can adapt to their own experiences.

So yeah, I want to be relatable and real. I have the constant fear that my forthcoming will be the demise of my reputation (honestly, it's pretty much shot anyway), but the possibility (and probability, in my case) of my candor helping someone in their time of need outweighs my fear. If my struggles help someone else, I will write everything.

I've read some journals of my grandmother. She wrote lists. Lists of what to buy at the store, what each kid wore on Easter, and what she ate that day and the like. Ok stuff to read, but nothing too personal or interesting. But then she had one or two small exceptions (not even entries- mere sentences) when she laid it all on the line, good and bad. She wrote about how she sometimes felt unwelcome in her husband's family and how she missed her brothers and her home in the South. She wrote how she loved her children and how each of them was different and unique in their own ways. She wrote about her husband and his career and talents. Reading things like that make me want to hug her and ask her to tell me more. It makes me love her. I am grateful she wrote those. I am grateful my mom wrote in her journals and started me on writing.

This is becoming awfully long, but I have a few more things. I've been having this reoccurring dream, of treasure of my grandparents. I think the idea of treasure came to me because my grandpa actually did hide things in the walls and crevices of his house, and when we visited, we always speculated what was in there and to dared each other to find out. So I started having dreams in which I searched for their treasure. The dreams occurred in different locations, and the treasure in different places. In one dream, it was in the my aunt's house above her kitchen; one time it was in the tunnels and passages of a sky scrapper; once it was in a tiny, dark, foreboding room in an abandoned mansion and to get to this room, I had to pass through progressively darker and smaller and creepier rooms. Sometimes I will be SOOO close to finding the treasure of my grandparents. I'll be at the door, and for a fleeting second I see the contents of the room- black shadows of an antique dresser, a dressmaker's dummy, a piano. In the few moments I'm given to view the room, I strain my eyes for any sort treasure, barely visible in the pitch blackness, and then the dream ends.

And then about a year ago, after many variations of the dream, I discovered the treasure. I was standing in an attic, and before I even saw anything, I knew. It was spacious and brilliantly light by huge windows in the sloped ceiling and the walls were a warm light wood. It was very inviting, unlike the idea of dark attics and hidden rooms I had been searching in. In the center of the room there were hundreds of peach and soft pink lengths of flowing fabric hanging from the ceiling, swaying on their own. The fabric was so thin and airy it was almost invisible, and had more of the consistency of a cloud than fabric. You could walk through them like a beam of light in fog. On the end of each piece of fabric was something of my grandmothers. One was a teacup and saucer she loved, they were worn and chipped. One was a tube of lipstick, the metal casing stained with rust. One was a book she loved (Gone with the Wind), it was dog-eared and falling apart. Off to the side, there was a shelf with books on it. I opened the books. They were her journals, and in them she wrote all about her life and her thoughts, hopes, fears, joys, desires, struggles, everything. There were old photo albums of my young grandparents and their kids- pictures of them I had never seen before. They were sepia and black and white- photographs of all of them in different setting and stages of life. The photos were yellowing and the pages were coming loose. I soaked it in, looking at everything I could get my hands on in the short time I knew I would have there. On the other side of the room were toys my mom and her sisters had when they were children. There was a vintage rocking horse, a wooden sled, and a child's bicycle. Once shiny apple red, the bicycle was now dull with time.

When I woke up, I think I actually cried. The treasure of my grandparents was them- their lives, their children, their journals, their memories. It was so beautiful, everything was old and worn but had been well loved and cherished and spoke of their joy.

Sometimes I have reoccurring dreams that stop reoccurring once they have resolved themselves. Not this one. I still sometimes dream of the treasure of my grandparents, and I am always happy that I do. It's still different each time, but the theme is always the same. I had the treasure dream again last night. Perhaps that is why it's on my mind. And conveniently, it relates to the topic of journals. I absolutely treasure the journals of my family members. I wish they had written more. I cannot think of a better gift they could give me, than that of the story of their life from their point of view. It is treasure to me. I want to give that to my children and my family.