I scribble down quotes, story ideas, lists, jokes, complaints, letters to myself, purposefully disregarding formal structure. I doodle, paint, get mad, and write mad things in big, mad letters. In these pages I let myself really breathe. My second journal is a larger, 9" x 12" Strathmore “visual journal.” It’s unlined, with thick paper that’s substantial enough that my markers and inks don’t bleed. I also note my mood (on a fluctuating, subjective scale of 1 to 10 for anxiety), things I’m grateful for (a rare night of good sleep, my cat’s purr, a memorable meal, a new dress), and the weather. The first is a page-a-day Moleskine planner in which I quickly note everything that transpired on that date, including the “boring” stuff. At 30, I landed on my magic combo: I now keep two journals. Went home”) or childish (“Does everyone hate me?!”) for its fancy pages.Īt 28, after a diagnosis of stress-induced epilepsy, I experimented with different types of journals as a way of managing my anxiety and also to help improve my memory, which has grown spotty with the anti-epileptic medications I take (and with age). Looking at my notebooks from my teens and 20s, there’s a progression from lined pink diaries that I used sporadically to small black unlined Moleskines, to even tinier, expensive, delicately papered ledgers that I ultimately never wrote in, since everything I wanted to write seemed too mundane (“Went to Trader Joe’s. I felt that way for a long time too, because I hadn’t figured out the kind of journaler I was. ![]() Of course, I totally understand that journaling can seem time-consuming, overwhelming, or like one of those things you always mean to do but never get to, like therapy or meditation. I highly encourage you to consider starting a journaling practice this new year too, however big or small, as a reminder that each day was a whole, entire day that you lived, breathed, felt, grew, grieved, laughed, and loved, often in great emotional waves. ![]() It is largely this reflective writing that kept me somewhat grounded amid the chaos that was 2020-and will hopefully continue to do so in 2021. But I’ve always maintained a notebook in some way, especially as I’ve grown older, and in 2019 I finally committed to a serious journaling practice. ![]() I’m not an obsessive journaler actually, I’m consistently inconsistent about the frequency with which I write. In my apartment, I keep almost every journal I’ve ever written, from first grade on.
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