Sharing your Thoughts on Big Events

Growing up, I can remember listening to my parents tell me about their experiences, thoughts, and feelings of different big events in history such as the day President John Kennedy was assassinated. While this was something I learned about in school, it was also interesting and neat to me to learn about it outside of a text book, to hear the personal experiences of my parents and other relatives as well.

Something I started doing about five years ago for both my children is journaling about my thoughts and feelings on the big events and days in our country, on the days that will one day end up in text books.

I started doing this right after the September 11th attacks in 2001. I was still pregnant with Charlie at this time, he was born 9 days later but I still thought it would be neat to record my thoughts and feelings for him as well. Sure, he is going to learn about this in school and I’m sure his parents will tell him how they felt but this is a way for him to learn how I was feeling at that time.

Let me share how and why I do this using one of the more recent big events in our country, the Inauguration of President Obama……

Regardless of your political views, January 20th, 2009 was a big day in American history because not only is President Barack Obama the first African American president to lead our nation but also because he is the 44th President as well. January 20th, 2009 will be in text books for both of the reasons.

After watching the Inauguration on TV. I sat down and wrote about my thoughts and feelings as I watched the Inauguration and watched President Obama be sworn in as our new President. My plan now is to scrapbook that journaling along with a headline from today’s newspaper and place it in Charlie’s scrapbook. Since I am not raising Charlie, this will be a great way for him to see where I was, what I was doing, and how I felt on the important days in history.