Journal. Everything.
My childhood diary
I was really young when I asked my mom for a diary, I’m guessing around the age of 5-6. She gave me a beautiful journal that she had lying around, brand new. It was brown and blue and green and white and it had a flower on the front of it and it was tied with these beautiful baby green ribbons. I attempted to add a lock to it to make it more elusive (in reality this was my way of creating a “My Password Journal,” if any of you remember what that is). It very obviously did not work, however.
It didn’t strike my fancy very much – I wasn’t a talented writer quite yet. I didn’t really get into journaling until I was a bit older, after I bought my first diary. It was around Valentine’s Day when I was 8. My dad and I were at Michael’s on a Tuesday - I was sick and home from school, so he took me there to cheer me up (I am an artíst, after all. Accent on the i. Anyone see that? Anyone? Ok that was cringe). I spotted a beautiful cobalt turquoise diary with a lower case letter “a” on it in white. I was sold. It was only a buck! (I also bought two cute little Valentine’s Day bowls that I still have/use to this day).
My very first entry in my new diary!
I wrote in that thing every single day. I would hastily write about my days as a young elementary school lass, from my square-dancing escapades in P.E., to the insults my brothers would use against me. I signed off each day with a “Gotta go, see ya!”, or something of the sort. I wrote and wrote and wrote, switched notebooks to a Littlest Pet Shop themed one, and I then moved up the ranks as I bought a Diary of a Wimpy Kid Do-It-Yourself book in 4th grade (that sh!t was so legendary) at the Scholastic Book Fair (even more legendary). As I entered middle school, the nature of my entries were changing, as I began to journal more about crushes, gossip, and whatever else concerns a 13 year old. I wrote in what I called a ZAP book, named after a game we used to play back then. (“Back then”?!?? Damn, I feel old).
Me after talking to my parents and realizing I was being dumb af
My journaling days however, came to an abrupt end – when I one day was flipping through my ZAP book and I noticed that on the very pages I wrote those boy names – there were scribbles that were… not in my handwriting. Comments making fun of what I was writing, of me and my appearance, comments only an older brother would leave his younger sister. I was mortified. I couldn’t read through the rest of it as I didn’t even want to imagine what he had read in my little yellow pocket notebook. Now, I always knew my brother would read through my diaries, as privacy is never a thing when you’re the youngest child. But, seeing him write in there made my stomach churn. I swore off from journaling ever again after that. Unsolicited comments also flooded my Diary of a Wimpy Kid DIY book, too. Those are effing hilarious, though.
It wasn’t until January 2020 when I made a New Year’s Resolution to keep a journal and come out of my hiatus. I was very meticulous with it. I simply could not go to bed unless I had journaled. No matter how inconvenient, no matter where in the world I was, I had to write about my day with the utmost detail, taking up at least one full page. Once, at a model UN conference in Philly, I retreated to our hotel room’s bathroom and was awake until 2am writing about my jam-packed day. I was THAT invested in it. I knew my senior year of high school deserved to be journaled about. Well, COVID hit and every day stayed the same. So that came to another abrupt end.
In college I attempted to journal, sometimes. I was too lazy to write, so I would just voice record my special days. I usually would (forget to) take a journal with me when I traveled (I’d have to buy one) and that was about it (it happened two Euro trips in a row).
And, that brings me to… the present! I have a million empty journals, and I knew I wanted to begin to fill them up. However, I just didn’t know what to write in them. Rushingly recounting my every day life sounded like a chore, and I didn’t want to write about random prompts that I found on the internet. So, I’ve adopted a “Journal Everything” mentality. With my little green sketchbook with We Bare Bears stickers that I received as a secret Santa gift (thanks Rowan) senior year, I’ve been writing literally EVERYTHING. Things I want to thrift? In the journal. Fall date ideas? In the journal. Things that pissed me off today? Journal. To-do list for the day? J-O-U-R-N-A-L. It’s surprisingly liberating to get all my thoughts out, no matter how minuscule or random they seem. Before I always thought journals were just meant to be kept as a life archive – it is so much more than that. Try journaling about stupid stuff. Sounds counterintuitive, but it’ll save your brain. Especially if you’re like me and always have thoughts running at 100mph.
A picture of my current “Everything” journal, which I am rather obsessed with
So, riddle me this: do you journal? What do you like to journal about? If not, pick up a pen, grab a notebook, and join me on this journaling journey (heh see what I did there..)!
Some more entries, just for kicks. I kid you not, every single page is making me laugh. I can’t choose favorites they’re all too good. I’m choosing pages at random. Do yourself a favor and click on each photo to get a better view of each entry. I’m personally a big fan of the P.S. in the second picture – I knew even back then my worth!
Cheers (as Kavya says),
