Out With The Old

I spent a good part of the afternoon yesterday flipping through my old journals; I stumbled upon them when I was cleaning out the drawers in my bedroom.

While I read page after page of teen and young adult angst, I thought, "How horrified would I be if someone actually read this stuff?"

" What if I die tomorrow (God forbid, knock on wood, and all that good stuff) and my hubby and kids clean out my drawers and find these journals full of self-deprecating and embarrassing anecdotes?"

After some consideration, I decided I would give the journals one final read-through before sending them to a fiery grave in a backyard bonfire. I now have a bag of my torn-to-shreds past waiting to be torched. It wasn't easy letting go, and I tried many times before, but somehow today it just felt right to finally say good-bye and leave the past in the past for good. I pulled out a few pages that I thought were worth keeping - poems, big moments like getting engaged and first pregnancy - but anything before that was just too mortifying. I'll store them in a memory box for my kids to find when I'm gone.

I has a blast reading my old journals and remembering the people, places and issues I dealt with in my youth. Every crush, every fight with mom, every boring job, every school friendship - all of those experiences shaped me into the woman I am today. I'm a completely different person now - an adult ((shudder)), a wife, a mom. I look forward to blogging about my life as it is now. It's time to move on.