People are hoarders of various things. Some collect antiques, dolls, shoes, or clothes; some dedicate their entire lives to the unfulfilling quest of storing mounds of money. I guess you can call me a hoarder of memories, of experiences. I am a journal enthusiast. Nothing delights me more than using a recent CVS receipt in a decorative spread, picking up the newspaper and looking for things I can cut out, and using ungodly amounts of washi tape. When I’m simply not in the artistic mood, I love to pick up my favorite gel ink pen and recap my week, noting my thoughts, introspections, opinions, struggles, triumphs, and everything that falls in between.
I strongly believe that every single person should own and use a personal journal, be it to write, paint, scribble, collect, or even just destroy. I make this claim because as a self-proclaimed writer, artist, and collector, I have come to know myself with such intimacy as a result of simply deciding to make space for myself. Unburdened from the weight of performing for other people and instead being able to vent without an audience sets me free. I may be old-fashioned, but a physical journal is the best means of establishing intention; I believe the act of writing forces one to slow down, both physically and mentally.
It was inevitable for me to find journaling in one sense or the other. I grew up in Kingston, Jamaica with two parents who believed that children should always be expanding their horizons and trying new things. So, every single summer, there was something new: basketball, swimming, pottery, dancing, and theater, to list a few. But I consistently chased creative expression above all else.
Growing up, the stationery aisle was my bliss. Wherever I went, I would always be in search of papers, pens, stickers, and anything else I could use to create. There is something to be said for an emotionally sensitive child in search of the blank page; I was always excited to start new notebooks—which back then were blindingly pink Barbie diaries, a stark contrast to my favorite pastel-colored Moleskine journals now. Although I loved the newness of it all, my goal was always to achieve a filled-up book—one that was personalized in a way that couldn’t be recognized as anybody else’s but my own. I’d always seek that accomplished feeling, knowing that I stayed committed to the habit. Even now, I love lived-in journals, their sense of comfort and familiarity evoking a warm feeling.
It wasn’t until the isolation of the COVID-19 pandemic that I decided to fulfill that childhood dream of keeping a journal consistently. I can objectively say that 15 is a dreadful age to be. Being stuck in the confines of my home with no physical interaction with friends or the outside world? Disastrous. Nearing the tipping point of insanity, I started a bullet journal to find some semblance of organization. The person I was when I started that little blue and purple marbled journal on June 25, 2020 was not at all the person I was when I finished it a year and a half later. I navigated my faith within the dotted pages, writing prayers and documenting the hard and confusing transition of living for God when nobody else in my household did. There are pages soaked with my salty tears, wondering when I would find a friend group and when I would escape the hell of Zoom. I documented, as if for some historical record, the unprecedented headlines of the day, and how the weeks seemed to be melding together, binding me in a cruel time loop of sameness. What started as a neat and polished bullet journal became a space for vents, art, unsent letters, and random collages—an outlet for the turmoil that only a teenage girl would know best. The more that I would put on the page, the lighter my heart and mind felt, and I began to feel more regulated in my mental and emotional wellness. So in a way, the habit of keeping a journal is healing and introspective, but also caters to that inner child within me who flocks to the stationery aisle, writes in her little pink diary, and goes crazy for stickers.
I’ve also learned a lot about life itself by simply manifesting my thoughts into physical form. I recall sitting in my online class in 2021 pondering a quote that I had seen from my beloved Pinterest feed: “Are you living or simply existing?” I dedicated a spread to the quote, layering the page with brown paper, irrelevant newspaper cuttings as a stylistic choice, and a pasted-in square with the question. At that point in my life, I felt utterly stagnant, and I made the distinction then and there that I had just been existing. I think a lot of people are in this unfortunate situation without realizing it; days, weeks, and months can go by, and they can’t recall anything that happened in that chunk of their lives. This quote inspired a mindset shift toward gratitude for every single thing in my present reality, whether big or small. I’ve learned that living is a choice in a cycle of monotony.
As I transitioned from my first to second journal, I became focused more on the content of my entries than their flashy appearances. Most times I would document things, not at the height of the moment, but more as a reflection of an emotion, thought process, or reaction. There is a particular entry that stands out to me every time, one that deviates from my neat script handwriting and evenly spaced lines, one that is filled with the rawness of my emotions, navigating romantic feelings and the baggage that comes with them. At the height of an anxiety attack, I sat down on my bathroom floor and scribbled away, sometimes in all caps, exactly what was running through my head. Many question the act of journaling on a philosophical level, wondering whether one writes to remember or writes to forget. Writing is usually the process of memorialization, yet some find it even more therapeutic to leave their worries on the page, never to be read again. I usually write to remember, but there is a tangible shift in that four-page relic; writing to forget is often a much more aggressive disposition.
On nights when I’m journaling in a Didionesque style with no real purpose, I find it quite amusing to take a walk down memory lane. I flip through my own writing, and it's as if I am reading things that are foreign to me. I love that part of documenting life. I often read day-by-day recaps or look at collages with random mementos, thinking “I would’ve never remembered that otherwise.” I also come across the most heart-wrenching entries that radiate the hurt I’ve hidden on the page for relief. I cry for that version of myself, those emotions and that unresolved pain momentarily resurfacing. Most of all, by this practice I learn the very important concept of perspective. I physically see how much life can change month to month, year to year, journal to journal. It makes me more aware that my current trials are but a vapor in the rainfall of life. It’s a tragically beautiful practice, writing poems for no other audience but yourself and letters for people who will never read the words you’ve secretly addressed to them.
I’ve acknowledged many reasons for writing, yet I guess I can relate slightly to George Orwell's assertion of a writer's vainness. Sometimes I write to see how flowery I can make my words sound—to mimic Plath’s tragic mood, or match my tone to those of the classic literary figures like F. Scott Fitzgerald and Frances Hodgson Burnett, whose books I fell in love with. I read quotes capturing profound emotions with words so beautifully simplified, and they speak to my soul. Sometimes I challenge myself subconsciously to reach the depths of those writers, and each time I learn about how to communicate simply to describe the complex.
Life moves quickly, and I find it moves even quicker when you allow it to pass you by. Slowing down and reflecting is how I keep up, as counterproductive as that sounds. The modern emphasis on fast-paced lifestyles seems entirely unbalanced to me. I think we as humans were designed to take things slowly. We can look to nature for evidence; a chicken egg doesn’t hatch overnight, and it takes 365 days for a single revolution of the Earth around the sun.
It's a marvel to see how attached I get to these journals, but it makes sense because they're all extensions of the past versions of myself. I self-regulate and feel serenity within this simple hobby. And as many ups and downs as I go through, and as much as they feel life-shattering in the moment, I love to feel deeply—to be numb to everything is like dying while still alive. The graveyard of empty gel ink pens that have faced the wrath of my emotions is proof that my feelings existed, and that I lived.
