To journal or not to journal....

Last week in YW I taught the lesson on keeping personal records.  It was an interesting lesson for me to teach because I am definitely not one that diligently keeps a journal.  I brought a couple of the journals that I have kept and even read a couple pages out of one to the girls.  My first journal entry was September 15, 1989 and back then my entries consisted of things like this:

As I looked through the scattered journal entries from high school and college, there were a lot of things that I wondered why the heck I wrote them, some good memories and some things I want to forget.  While prepping for my lesson I came across this quote:

"Your journal should contain your true self rather than a picture of you when you are “made up” for a public performance. There is a temptation to paint one’s virtues in rich color and whitewash the vices, but there is also the opposite pitfall of accentuating the negative. Personally I have little respect for anyone who delves into the ugly phases of the life he is portraying, whether it be his own or another's. The truth should be told, but we should not emphasize the negative. Even a long life full of inspiring experiences can be brought to the dust by one ugly story. Why dwell on that one ugly truth about someone whose life has been largely circumspect?" - President Spencer W. Kimball, Oct. 1975 New Era

I am an emotional person.  I feel a lot and I feel deeply.  I started this blog as a bit of a journal, but as I've written on it I have found that some things can't and shouldn't be shared in a place like this.  Some things have come back to bite me and other things I want to get out, but don't feel like this is the appropriate place.  There are times when I want to get it out.  The good, bad and really ugly, but 50 years from now I don't want my kids reading my journal and thinking that their mom was a fruit cake.  So how do I find the balance between being honest and not writing down experiences from a "made up" life and not dwelling solely on the negative?  It interesting teaching these lessons to twelve year old girls when you aren't really sure yourself.