in my skin.

feeling very here and now today... very present. it's delightful.

the girls are having an adventure: off to a pirate island to find "treadures". theodore is, as always, trailing behind, babbling and wanting so badly to be a part.

i've been journaling nearly incessantly in my big black journal. it always has to be the jumbo, black lined journal from borders, it has been since i was 14 years old. i have 3 pages left in my current, and a brand new, unwritten in, blank book waiting for me. i am so excited to fill it up, it's nearly tangible. i went through and read my past journals the other day. it was weird, cathartic and very revealing. there are constants: lovey, the kids, housekeeping... and then there are mind boggling questions and knots that have persisted through the years. and watching myself un-knot them, over a period of time... that is fascinating and hopeful. sometimes i feel narcissistic, writing the epic of effie's life, but then i don't. journaling has always been something i've done. my first taste of journaling was a little house on the prairie diary, a gift from my grandma for my 8th birthday. i wish i still had it, i wrote so many little details and feelings in it. i graduated to spiral bound notebooks, and then to composition notebooks. and then for christmas, when i was 14, my mom gave me one of the big black journals along with a collection of elizabeth barret browning's poetry. she has always been, and always will be, my favorite poet. (with the exception of my darling lovey!)

sadly, i threw out the journal that spanned the last half of 14-16. on my 17th birthday, i tossed it in the garbage bin and didn't feel the slightest bit of doubt. that is one of the few things i regret. that one journal covered my worst times and some of the happiest and most life changing moments i've experienced. so many teenage epiphanies and plans to change the world, and also my deepest sadness and pain.

i have promised myself to never get rid of my words, from here on out. no matter how tough it may be to re-read them, or even to know they exist, my journals are a very big part of my life.

i don't have lofty goals of my great-great-great grandchildren reading them, or other grand plans some folks seem to have for their journals. i simply do it for myself, and the satisfaction of going back to this day 4 years ago, 2 years ago, last year... and reading where i've been and how far i've come.