Do you keep a diary, or do you journal?

Do you keep a diary, or do you journal?

I spent the weekend with my brother and sister in the Midlands, emptying our grandparent’s house. Having lost our nan in January and Gramps now being in a home, the weekend was an emotional rollercoaster, and to be honest I totally underestimated how much it would affect me.

My nan was a hoarder so we knew it would be an arduous task, and when 2 people have spent 74 years together, they accumulate a LOT of stuff, and deciding what we kept, what went to charity and what would end up in landfill was heartbreaking. We were throwing away their life together and had to keep reminding ourselves it’s just stuff!

But not all of it was just stuff. They were from a generation who have seen HUGE changes in the way people live and communicate. Their first flat had a shared outdoor toilet, and no running water and phone calls only happened on prearranged times so every could head to the phone box! We can’t even begin to imagine living like that.

One of the hardest things about the weekend was reading through some of the letters and cards my grandparents had sent to each other and received from the rest of the family.

It gave us a real insight into their lives and relationships and it’s fair to say that through the smiles we shed a lot of tears.

Driving home with a collection of letters, old diaries and my nans bibles packed safely away with a few keepsakes, I had a few hours to ponder what would happen when we’re no longer here and our children have to sort through our belongings and dispose of our lives.

There are a few letters my mum wrote to me when she was in the hospice, and my journals probably won’t make much sense as I journal as part of my self-coaching so it will be just personal belongings and a lifetime of stuff… and that’s hard enough to deal with. But this weekend I came away with a piece of my nan that I’d not seen before. An understanding of one mother and grandmother to another. A woman who used letter writing and her diary as a way of getting all the thoughts that troubled her out of her head, her own kind of therapy.

We might send a text to a friend or loved one, and Facebook may have legacy pages (for now) but actually writing down our thoughts, tapping into our subconscious as we do so, helps us release a lot of things we don’t need. It helps us to work things through and find solutions and as some of my coaching clients will tell you, journaling and continuous writing can be a real gamechanger.

I came home after this weekend feeling far closer to my nan than I have in a long time, and I will treasure that and her precious writings forever.  And alongside my self-coaching journal which keeps me sane and on track to grow my business, I think I will start writing down memories and musings which will hopefully give my children some comfort when I’m not here.

Food for thought.