Every page is blank, until I fill it

In the back of my planner I carry a card that my Mom sent to me when I was 16, living in Montreal. I read it all the time when I'm not so sure of things, and by the end I am again.

Keep Believing in Yourself and your special dreams.
There may be days when you get up in the morning and things aren't the way you had hoped they would be.
That's when you have to tell yourself that things will get better...

There are times when people disappoint you and let you down, but those are the times when you must remind yourself to trust your own judgments and opinions, to keep your life focused on believing in yourself and all that you are capable of.
There will be challenges to face and changes to make in your life, and it is up to you to accept them.
Constantly keep yourself headed in the right direction for you.

It may not be easy at times,
but in those times of struggle you will find a stronger sense of who you are,
and you will also see yourself developing into the person you have always wanted to be.

Life is a journey through time, filled with many choices;
each of us will experience life in our own special way.
So when the days come that are filled with frustration and unexpected responsibilities, remember to believe in yourself and all you want your life to be, because the challenges and changes will only help you to find the dreams that you know are meant to come true for you.
--Deanna Beisser

I'm one of those old schoolers who still carries a hand written planner everywhere I go. I have every planner from Freshman Year of High School up until now. I can tell you where I was on any given day over the past 10yrs of my life. My Grandpa has one for every year going back as far as I can remember (he's had them my whole life and records in them daily--phone conversations, daily temperature, notes on the days events, etc!) Is record keeping hereditary?!?!

Unlike my Grandpa, I make notes/plans in my planners and write all the details in journals and semi-scrap book in them as well, gluing in keepsakes or drawing images to remember. I have six spanning 1993-Present. It's interesting to look back on where I was, and see where I've ended up. What course my choices, friendships and relationships have taken, who's still in my life, who has entered my life, where I've gone, and what I've done. I'm in a place I never dreamed possible, following circumstances I never imagined or even fully noticed until way after the fact.
I truly feel like a bird who had to break through its shell (or, in some cases, have parts of it smashed in around me) in order to fly.
My shell has officially broken.
Now, I'm warming up my wings, getting used to loosing feathers, and making a few test flights before I'm ready soar. It's a scary thing! Luckily, I can find encouragement in the ability to look back and see that everything turned out OK and that I've done OK thus far. Even more than OK. At times, I made a perfectly OK ass out of myself. I took perfectly OK risks. I made perfectly OK wrong decisions, and excellently OK right ones. It's OK to love and OK to lose. Those who truly love you back, are never lost. It's OK to fight, and it's OK to cry. It's OK to live, and it's OK to die. It's OK to wish things were different, and it's OK to start over. It's OK to speak your mind, and it's OK to not be heard. It's OK because I say it's OK, and because looking back on the past and seeing the present, it is! :)