Welcome to Life Keeping, a place where we explore how to build a meaningful life, one ordinary experience at a time.
There is a basket on the top shelf of my closet. It’s a woven thirteen inch cube. It’s so heavy I worry it will break the shelf, and I always make sure to support the bottom when I take it down. It’s chockablock full of journals. Journals that I kept off and on, probably from about the age of eight till I was around twenty-five. Nobody ever told me to do it, I just did.
There is one journal in particular that stands out, and not just because it is the biggest, thickest one in the bunch.
I bought it at Barnes and Noble when I was twenty. I chose red because it was my favorite color at the time – it represented living life to its fullest to me, something that I was always thinking about and still am two decades later. I looked at several journals that day, but I remember taking it off the shelf and loving the way it felt in my hands. It was heavy, with a flexible leather cover. It felt ambitious to think I could fill this whole journal and I set a goal to do just that. I really wanted to finish something. Even if it was just filling a notebook with my thoughts and feelings.
I absolutely loved writing. I’d write poems and stories, but I was most consistent at writing journal entries. That time in my life was…let’s just say, tumultuous. I think most people’s twenties are. In the words of Taylor Swift, it’s a “miserable and magical” time.1
Originally I was going to share an excerpt from the big, red journal, but looking through it I realized it is too raw and too painful to share. So a description will have to do. There were nights I was unhappy and I wrote in my red journal in wild handwriting and days I copied quotes that touched me in neat, prim letters.
When I was upset, I’d lay in bed staring at the ceiling and replaying conversations and situations over and over. I’d lay there and feel all the bad feelings. I’d feel wired and sleepless. Inevitably, I’d eventually turn on my lamp, pull out my journal, and write it all down. Then I’d turn off my light and finally be able to fall asleep.
I needed that journal to write about my miserable and magical life.
I kept at it for 3 years, and I finished it right as I was graduating college. (Yes, I was on the five and a half year college plan.) I remember writing on the first page of my new journal how appropriate that I was finishing my journal and finishing college in the same week. It was a momentous occasion and I was quite proud of myself for completing both!
After graduation, I started my teaching career, and I kept journaling for a while because I still needed that emotional release. But the journal entries became less and less frequent and eventually I gave up. I remember feeling the loss of my journaling practice, but I was just too zapped at the end of a day of teaching to do anything else. (More on that in another essay.)
Looking back at these old journal entries, I realized that my journals were not only my emotional dumping grounds. I used them to record my daily observations and reflect on their meaning for my life. I’d ask myself hard questions and then I’d try to answer them. Even though my conclusion was usually “I still don’t know the answer,” the process of writing it all down helped me to understand my own thinking. Going back and re-reading them helped me see patterns I didn’t notice in real time.
So I saved all my old journals, and from time to time, I’d go back and read them. During hard times, I sometimes used a one-off journal entry just to dump out my bad feelings, but I would usually run them through the shredder afterwards. I completely abandoned journaling as a longterm practice.
Until one day, a newsletter from Elsie Larson landed in my inbox. The subject line read “Summer Journal Tour.” She made journaling look fun, decorating her pages with washi tape and stickers. It made me think back to my early days and made me really want to start journaling again.
One day my family took a little trip to Daiso and I found the notebook aisle first, followed by the washi tape display. I chose a thin notebook in a color I liked. That way, just looking at it would make me happy, and I wouldn’t need to make the level of commitment I had made to journaling back when I was in my twenties.
When I got home, I got to work. Since I was starting fresh, I again decided to keep it simple. After all, low bars are easier to attain. I set up my first page just like one of Elsie’s.
Then, I just started writing. I wrote about small moments and what I learned from them. I even wrote about the trip to Daiso and buying my current notebook. It might not be profound, but I love writing down simple details from my everyday experiences. It helps me to remember, and my hope is that if I remember what I like, I can incorporate it more easily into my life.
And I’ve used my journal to tackle some bigger issues. I completed a “mid-year review” inspired by Shelley from Let’s Live and Learn. I always have enjoyed reading about Shelley’s methods for goal setting and reflection, but now that I had a journal again, I had a place to try it out for myself. I wrote down a few section headings like Home, Friendship, Health, Wealth, etc. And beneath each section I used Shelley’s system of +, -, → to reflect on each area of my life. This process forced me to think about what I had accomplished (more than I thought), what was missing, and what I wanted to do about it. Writing about what I want from life actually pushed me to start this newsletter.
Something else has changed about my journaling practice. Though I am still using my journal for emotional processing and for keeping a record of my day-to-day life, my focus has turned more towards reflection than surviving my own emotions. Luckily my daily life has much less emotional turmoil than it did when I was a twenty-something, and that leaves a lot more room for thinking. A journal is a great place for deciding what matters about an experience.
In addition, I am now using my journal to have fun. Not only am I decorating it with washi tape, but I’m having a great time picking out stickers from my Nathalie Lété sticker book to adorn the pages. One night I sat down and watched a bunch of YouTube video tutorials for kawaii style drawings. I doodled in my journal as I watched.
I’ve enjoyed my return to journaling both as a place to process thoughts and feelings and to revel in things that bring me joy.
In remembering what journaling has meant to me, I’ve come to a realization about why I’ve returned to my notebooks. When I was eight, I journaled to make a record of my day-to-day. When I was in my twenties, I used my big, red journal to survive the intense emotions that come with becoming an adult. I abandoned my habit when it became too much to maintain in my everyday. And now that I’m in my forties, I’m returning to it mostly because I enjoy it. I want to reflect on the things that happen in my life, retain what’s good and leave what’s not behind on the page.
If you enjoyed this essay, please feel free to pull up a chair, crack open a Cherry Coke, and sit with me on the back porch to help me figure out what actually matters. Let’s tend to life, together.
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Now that you’ve read what journaling means to me, I’d love to hear what it means to you. Do you have your own version of the big, red journal?
Taylor Swift, “22”
I love this! Journaling has been a form of therapy. And it’s more fun with washy tape haha!
I loved this post. It resonated with me so much about how you have journaled differently in different stages of life. I have done the same but always found it hard to move into different layouts, systems etc. But the reality is that as long as we're enjoying what we're doing, does it matter if we've deviated from our last journal entry? Or if we've missed an entry or two? Definitely not! It's there to support us and be a creative outlet when we need it. Thanks so much for sharing! :)