My Longitudinal Study Continues

The past and the future, five years at a time. (This is a terrible image. . . the new book's cover is forest green, not black.)

How often do we get to easily see what we were doing or feeling or thinking exactly one year ago on this date – or two years ago or five?

I blogged most recently in February this year about my five-year diary, a Leuchtturm 1917 Some Lines a Day. I’ve also written about it several times at the Well-Appointed Desk (my initial product review in 2020, a progress report in 2022, and a final follow-up in February).

Although it’s one of few things I talk about here that aren’t related to sketching, it’s similar to my daily sketch journal in that it tracks the ordinary day-to-dayness of my life. As I write each evening in my Some Lines book, I read the previous entries for that date on the same page, and I’m often moved or surprised by whatever I was doing in prior years. Any kind of diary (or sketchbook) will do this, of course, but a five-year diary puts all the years on one page so conveniently. It’s a compact longitudinal study of my life.

[An aside: Called a perpetual journal, nature journalists use a similar format to track year-to-year seasonal changes in plants and weather. I have often thought about how a perpetual urban sketch journal could be made. The main problem is physical: It would have to be a large, not-very-portable book to fit several sketches on a single page – in a heavy volume of 366 pages. A more compact idea would be to make a concertina booklet for each date, and the entire booklet unfolded would show five (or however many) years of sketches. But that would mean making 366 booklets (or half that if I used both sides)! And then how would they all be stored? Although the platform is dubious, I must say that Facebook very elegantly performs this perpetual sketch journal function for me in a digital format: Every time I look at my “Memories,” I can see every sketch I’ve ever posted on that date going back through my history on Facebook (which coincides fairly closely with how long I’ve been sketching). Well, maybe someday I’ll think of a workable format.]

I’m writing about my five-year diary again now because I finally completed the one I began on Nov. 16, 2020. That might seem like an odd date to start a dated diary that begins, like all diaries, on Jan. 1. I chose that date, however, because it’s my birthday, and I liked the idea of beginning a diary on my life’s anniversary rather than a date based on an arbitrary and meaningless Gregorian calendar.

The past five years have been, by far, the hardest and most painful of my entire life. Although it is often difficult to be reminded of what I was going through in years past, it is also gratifying to realize that I had pushed past that day’s hardship, survived, and even grown from it. I often feel compassionate toward my former self, wishing I could go back in time to reassure myself that things will get better eventually. Reading those entries never fails to fill me with gratitude.

I just cracked open a fresh volume on Nov. 16. Using the Some Lines a Day format has taught me how and what to write in it. Rather than record only what happened, I want to note how I felt about it. For example, the fact that a huge storm occurred is not nearly as moving as recalling that I felt scared because it was the first time I would worry about losing power while living alone in the house. The more specific the memory, the more interesting it is to read.

I skipped entire months in 2021, but I don't beatmyself up about it.
Sometimes absence of words speaks volumes.

I also find that some of the most rewarding entries to read are those that mentioned people I interacted with that day. This was especially challenging during the pandemic heyday when I hardly saw anyone, but it was gratifying to later remember the kindness of a grocery worker who loaded my food in the pickup lot or friendly words exchanged with an Amazon driver. It also makes me realize a whole year (or two or three) has gone by since I last had lunch with a particular friend – and seeing them again is long overdue.

I know historians like to read people’s diaries (God forbid mine should fall into the hands of a historian!) to learn about events of the times, but I avoid writing about current events unless I have thoughts or feelings that might interest me in the future. Mere facts can be Googled; my feelings about them cannot.

Gratitude, wonder, joy – those are the things I want to read about in the future. And although grief, pain and sadness are not easy to reread, I also appreciate that everything I felt in the past makes me who I am now. Reading those entries gives me perspective and insight.

Retrospection is a gift to myself, and my five-year diary is that daily gift.