I have journaled since I was fifteen.  I got the idea from watching reruns of "Doogie Houser, M.D." ( I just love Neil Patrick Harris).  I had an old word processor that I used for school.  It was pretty top of the line when it came to word processing.  It had a little disk drive that you could save your documents on.  I journaled on that until the word processor broke a few years later.  I got an iMac my senior year of high school, then I journaled there.  Somehow I lost my files one day.  So unfortunately, I don't have any copies of my early journals.

     I started writing the good old fashioned way - with a notebook and pen, when I was nineteen.  I treasure all of my writings, and on occasion go back and read them.  I laugh at all my insignificant problems, that I really thought were big problems.  One entry that particularly makes me laugh is from March  26, 2001, where I wrote a list of qualities to look for in a guy.  Here is what the nineteen year old me thought were good qualities for a mate:

1.  He has to love god more than he loves me
2.  He has to make me happy
3.  He has to be intelligent
4.  He has to be a little ghetto (I'm still trying to figure out what I meant about this)
5.  He has to be fun and like to do things
6.  He has to be decent looking, and a nice shade of brown
7.  He has to have a good job
   
     This list makes me laugh.  Some things I wrote still hold true.  Numbers 2, 3 and 7 are still majorly important to me.  I would add other qualities to the list, like he has to like kids, and he has to have qualities of a good father amongst other things.  But I don't do lists anymore, my mire mature self knows there is nobody that will perfectly match everything that I'm looking for, but maybe "he" comes close.