I've always been a journaler. As long as I can remember I've clung to my diaries, journals and sketchbooks as my lifeline to... myself. This is my shelf of journals in my office — the first thing I'd grab if the house caught on fire would be these tattered old spiral-bound notebooks. Why? Sometimes I can't believe what I have created, until I look back. It's all in there. Surviving my teens, wanting to go to art school, the art school "experience" at RISD, traveling across the country from Boston to San Diego after graduation, the two years spent in my first corporate job and as a corporate "couple" (neither one suited me!), and then the move... to Oregon, in 1992.
Oregon starts the building of the life I fantasized about in my journals. The creation of my own graphic design studio, the wrangling of my cowboy, the first barf-filled moments of pregnancy and naming Wyatt and MacKenzie, and, every single step taken toward Wyatt-MacKenzie Publishing. Every naïve Oprah dream, every dime (way too many of those), every doubt, every tiny step forward for every three I fell back, documented and celebrated. And, most importantly, I refer back to them instead of paying for counseling! When I don't feel like I am making any progress, pulling an old journal out, opening to an old entry, and reflecting on where "I was" for me, is cathartic. Especially the pangs. Old pain brings joy in the now, somehow.
I laugh when I read older entries – it used to take 10 years to "catch up" to the dreams in my journals, then five years, then two... and now I write about dreams-come-true every single day. Open to Oct. 2 of last year and you'd see scrawled, screaming, across the page, "GINA ON OPRAH TODAY!" Then of course you'd read about the Harpo contract warning us not to use the appearance for any promotional purposes. Wild ride, it's all in there... and I hope to bring it to this blog, more!
