Another Journal Down

This morning, I woke up, rolled over, pet the cat that was curled on my legs, and (very sadly) got to work.

It's gross, but sometimes I don't even get out of bed before I'm answering emails, checking in with school projects, etc. It's important NOT to do this stuff in bed -- bed is for sleeping and dreaming and that sort of thing... real, tangible actions. Reading. Writing. Playing with the cat. Kissing. Knitting. Not a place for my phone, or my computer, or anything else that takes me away from the bed, from the cozy hygge place. (Full disclosure: I'm a hypocritical jerk who is typing this entry from my bed. Justification: it's not buzzfeed or work)

So after I got all the immediate things out of the way (mainly ascertaining if I had to get out of bed and rush to my internship or not) I put the laptop aside and reached for my paper journal.

And I finished it.

I don't often finish journals -- not all the way to the last page, anyway. For some reason I stop or get attached to a new journal before the bitter end. Sometimes I make a jump away because the tenor of my life has changed so radically that I feel a shift in paper to match the shift in my mood or world.

It's pleasing to finish something you started...

FNISHED!!!

...this journal is only 29 pages long, and it took me over a year to complete. It shows an optimistic start last October, then a rather sad little spiral down to brief entries spaced months apart as I pretty much gave up on everything and started repeating myself. Then there are these huge entries from August, bursting with life and joie de vivre (because I was in France, hahahahahaha) a plop each from September, October, November, and this final entry in December.

Immediately after taking the above photo, I dropped the journal and it landed on my cream cheese bagel, and I had to lick all the cream cheese off the back cover.

better than the last journal, which got tuna-fish juice on it and had to be segregated into a plastic baggie

In terms of writing output, I hope to do better next time! Write more... it's important! Journalling gives me an interesting perspective on my life. A good place to take notes about what's happening and communicate with my lizard-brain, and with future-me. Sometimes, when I can read my own writing, I see themes, I see things I went through and thought about, and I know the outcome. I see that my anticipation was justified, or that I was worrying over nothing. Knowing your patterns is an important step in overcoming them and changing the shitty parts of your life into awesome parts.

I'm excited to go into my paper trunk today and pick out a blank journal. Most of them are notebook types I've used in the past, so I know they are comfortable for my hands and my thoughts.

Do you guys journal? It's fun sometimes... a good mental exercise.



Update: This is the book I chose to be my next journal:

The pink book is the journal, the white paper is a tiny book (held up for detail) that I made when I visited The Nomadic Press, a fantastic printing shop, for a field trip last year. 

I made that little 4-page book, with letter-press images, and tucked it in this pink book for safekeeping. When flipped through the book again to see if I liked the feel of the pages and the spacing of the lines, this little book fell out.

I think that's a good enough sign for me that this book is ready for me, and I'm ready for it in return.