My Mother taught me that record keeping can literally make a difference in your life...

I learned so much from my mother but the one thing that stands out the most – the one thing that I still practice decades later is journaling. Of course, when she was doing it, it was not called journaling. She referred to it as keeping Yearbooks. I will explain.

My mother, a single parent worked for a major corporation – one of course, like some still do today believed that men were better than woman. She was an executive assistant and exceptionally good at her job. But she knew better than to trust anyone.

To backtrack, being divorced and fighting over IRS deductions with her ex, she started keeping a log of every penny she spent on my brother and me. She had to prove that she provided more for us than the measly $100 a month child support my father was sending. Can you image claiming that the $100 a month was enough to claim you were the main financial contributor to your children when they needed rent, food, clothes, schoolbooks, doctor visits, etc.?

So, my mother began logging not only expenses in but everything. What time she left for work, what went on at work – if she did anything outside the scope of her job, what time she left work, etc. This went on for years. In high school I began to emulate my mother and keep the same yearbooks. Each was labeled with the year and had a page for each day. Of course, being in high school other than petty friend issues and test scores sometimes I would be creative with what I wrote so every day something was written – for example, one day I wrote “Today I look forward to tomorrow.”

But then my mother was notified that she was going to be fired as another employee claimed she was not doing her job and had been causing this employee problems. My mother thought about just letting it be but then how would she pay the rent? What about the medical insurance we had become accustomed too? So, my mother demanded a “hearing.”

I remember how concerned she was. She knew this woman was jealous of her and they had some issues. Also, this woman had a relationship with a manager in the office – a married man. I helped my mother go through her yearbooks where she documented the many times she did the work for this woman – covering for the affair -the times she did not only her work perfectly but the woman and even the manager’s as well. We highlighted the passages, and she went into battle. Armed with the dates and times and specifics she won! Later she was awarded a means service award for her work – which she did indeed deserve.

This taught me many things. Keep records. You never know when you might need to prove something, and memory is not perfect. In fact, many years later I had an issue with a landlord who wanted me out but did not want to wait for the court to work. I received a call from a lawyer stating he would help stop my eviction. Eviction? What? I wasn't behind in my rent. What was this?

So, I got him to give me the case number. I went to the court and got the records. He claimed I was served at 7:32 pm on a certain day. I went to my yearbook where I saw I was in another suburb shopping and had bought a pair of shoes. Finding the shoe receipt, I saw I bought them at 7:31 pm. I presented this to court proving the service was fraudulent. The case was thrown out and they were punished for misusing the court system – I got to stay longer 😊.

Stand up for yourself – if you do not who will? And why let anyone abuse you in anyway? I stand up for myself as well as others 😊. I have become a justice seeker. Evidence. Even evidence you log in can help you whether it is just to jog your own memory or to elicit a memory is a positive thing. To this day I keep a yearbook and journals. I write in them every day and some days I still write silly creative things when I feel I have nothing specific to log in. Thank you, Mom!