The other night my nine-year old daughter showed me a diary entry she had written in April. She noted specifically how her style of diary writing differed from her journal writing. "See mom, this diary shows how I was scared in Girls on the Run, when those kids chased me and Megan around my school. And how we told the teacher. It's the 'secrets' or feelings inside my head." She went on to say that the difference between writing in a journal and writing in a diary has to do with emotions and personal feelings. "In my journal I just write down what happens each day. There's no feeling." In my daughter's mind, the addition of "feelings" or "emotions" makes the difference between a diary and a journal.
Inspired by my daughter's daily writing efforts, I hope to merge diary and journal in this blog - conveying feelings about my personal experiences while also "writing down what happens." Writer Natalie Goldberg calls this "writing down the bones." (Though I'll never be able to write like Natalie Goldberg.) In this journey of writing down the bones, I'll explore how exercise changes my life; but also how my life impacts exercise. I'm making a commitment to this conversation for at least one year. To commit to posting at least one entry per week for one year....my own version of Julie & Julia!
Actually, I am making two commitments. The first commitment is to exercise regularly and the second is to reflect on the personal struggles, challenges, victories and hopes that emerge over the course of this journey, through this blog.
You see, I am severely overweight - "morbidly obese" is the terminology used in medical nomenclature. I embarked on an intense exercise journey in April 2010, and there have already been some remarkable outcomes that I can't wait to share. I began this journey without any knowledge of the exercise world, and though I'm still a neonate, my reflections and feelings are real. This is my first entry.
Submitted on Wednesday, August 4, 2010
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