A Journal Full of Sorrow Can Lead to Gratitude

Writing your truth is never a waste of time.

A lot of people talk about gratitude journals and stopping to smell the roses. It is hard to complain about that and I’m not about to. I have never needed an actual gratitude journal, but I am sure I’ve forgotten lots of things I was thankful for at the moment.

This isn’t to say I haven’t tried to keep a journal, just that it wasn’t full of gratitude. The longest period I ever kept a daily journal, was the year that my first marriage fell apart. Let me explain.

As our tenth wedding anniversary approached, I lobbied hard for an anniversary ring. I had this dumb idea that our marriage was going to be the “death do us part” kind if we hit the 10-year mark. I was preparing to exhale.

I got the ring, but it was in a crappy way. I thought that at the time but told myself I was being unreasonable. Later, I thought I might not have been. Much later I told my future husband the story and he was outraged on my behalf. Boy, did that feel good.

It was our tenth anniversary. He gave our 7-year-old daughter a wrapped, larger-than-a-ring-box and had her give it to me. The anniversary present was from the whole family. I covered the disappointment that I wasn’t getting the ring I’d asked for.

I opened the box and found a handmade ring cut from PVC pipe. The kids looked at me expectantly. They thought this was great. I thanked them for the gift as fake genuine as I could. I wasn’t upset. I was stunned by the whole thing.

My husband grinned and said, “You need to keep looking.” Oh. The plastic ring was a joke. The kids giggled. I searched.

At the bottom of the box there was a wad of tissue paper, taped. I pulled it out and opened it. There was my anniversary ring. I thanked them and smiled. Pretty sure my smile was thin.

Would you have exhaled at this point?

Later, I gave my present to him as we sat in a restaurant for our anniversary dinner. I pushed the box across the table. Inside was a hotel room key. I had gotten a junior suite at a nice luxury hotel in town. His gratitude seemed genuine.

The next day, after a room service breakfast, I mentioned that we had a late checkout. Our babysitter knew so there was no rush. I wanted to go to the pool. He wanted to watch a football game in the room.

As I read my book alone at the pool, I didn’t absorb any of the words. I wondered if this was what marriage became after ten years. I ordered a drink from the poolside bar.

The following week I bought a journal. I began taking notes on my life. A few months later, the journal helped hold my thoughts together. I was writing in it daily by then.

It was full of questions about things my husband said and did. The questions centered around my own response to these things. I remember writing “Am I losing it? Is this all normal?”

He was coming home promptly from work almost every night. This was new.

He was taking the kids and the dog to the neighborhood park as I cooked dinner every night. This was also new.

He was around more. He didn’t go to happy hour multiple nights a week after work. He was going to the gym and working out twice a week. Those were the only nights he didn’t come straight home. Again, a new habit.

It seemed like he was making an effort to focus on his own health and our family. Why didn’t it feel that way?

I kept writing, “Why doesn’t this feel right? What is wrong with me?”

Later, his cellphone bill told the story. The walks to the park with the kids had been an opportunity to make phone calls. Those phone calls were all to the same New Jersey phone number.

I was still confused but began to believe something was going on. I wasn’t crazy. The journal helped. Then the credit card bill arrived. Why was there a charge to a florist in New Jersey?

My husband had a bullshit story about sending flowers to a childhood friend. I wrote it in the journal. Later, the more I found out about his long-distance affair, the more the timeline matched up with the notes I had taken.

The story of our breakup was in the pages of the journal. It was obvious to see. The only missing ingredient had been the confidence to believe what I was seeing.

This seems an odd way to work around to gratitude, but I am getting there, I promise.

After all hell broke loose and the marriage was in ashes, the journal remained. I realized it was my life lesson to trust my instincts. I knew that from my childhood. It had saved my ass numerous times. Why had I forgotten?

I had relaxed and trusted and when things changed, I didn’t remember to trust myself. To stop questioning my reaction. Ten years before I would have known I didn’t imagine things. Ten years before I would have called him out on his behavior at once.

I was thankful I had written in that journal.

After he had moved out, the atmosphere in the house relaxed at once. I thought about the things I was thankful for. I was sunk in divorce depression and anxiety so I was reaching for a lifeline. I had to be hopeful for my kids’ sake.

I kept that journal full of sorrow for many years. I stopped writing in it, but I kept it in a file cabinet, buried so the children wouldn’t find it. When my oldest child edged in on her teen years, I put it through the shredder. No child should read something like that.

By then I was remarried, and I had no need for my old journal of sorrow and fear. I am still grateful for it and the lesson it gave me.

I remember to trust myself now. Maybe the thing I am most grateful for.

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