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I've been obsessed with journaling since I was very little. Obsessed, however, doesn't mean good at. And being good at it is not what journaling is for, but being good at things was always something I was. I was that typical clever child, who excels at school and never causes much trouble. For a very long time, that was the definition of myself and it's still something I struggle to this day. I need to be good at things right from the very start. Otherwise I will never get the courage to start something - or - upon seeing how bad I am I will abandon that new thing immediately and never attempt it ever again. That's really not a healthy way of doing things.
I used to get thrilled when I stumbled upon something I had zero knowledge about. That usually meant I got to explore the part of library I hadn't before and read more books. Awesome. But as I got older that thrill turned into a horror. I feared not knowing things and angering my parents or my teachers or failing a test or an exam. And as things got progressively more difficult, I started to fail more often. And I started to fear more often.
The other thing is that my father loves taking photos or filming what he's doing and I guess I inherited that trait as well. But it always turned into an obsession. Whenever I started something that would capture my life, whether it was a handwritten journal or taking screenshots of things I liked or social media like instagram... I couldn't keep up. I couldn't continue when I messed up a page, or missed a day and didn't post anything - or - I would start trying to capture everything. I would meticulously add dates and the exact time I wrote things, I would take screenshots almost every single minute because I was afraid I would miss something important. I would monitore my conversations, my food, everything.
The last part is "forgetting" itself. I know how much it hurts to be neglected and I know how important it can be to remember things, even the little ones. I am scared to forget while knowing that forgetting is inevitable. I am scared to miss a word, a date, a moment - with the people I care about, because I care. I'm scared, I'm scared, I'm scared.
OCD much? Yes. From time to time I manage to notice that I am getting crazy over something ridiculous and stop doing that, but... not always.
So. I have always wanted to have a pretty journal where I would write things about my life. And my friends will write things about me. Having very messed up life and very little (if none) friends didn't really supported that notion, so I have many blank and unfinished journals online or off. Blogging is a part of the problem. I even abandoned writing journal as letters - the thing I was so thrilled at the beginning of this challenge.
Having irrational brain is a curse.
With that long ramble out of the way, I was always fascinated by journals, doodles, scrapbooks, albums, collages and other similar memorabilia. I always wanted to be one of those people who does them and does them well. To just take couple of minutes of my day and in the end of the year or a decade having created something so complex I will be proud of my past self that she spared those little minutes.
Recently I was recommending a bullet journal system to a Writing Buddy over at NaNoWriMo as a way to organise the notes for her story, because it has been a tremendous help for me to organise my studies at university. And while I am grateful to be more organised and efficient with my time than I ever was in my life, bullet journaling hasn't been really good for casual journaling - at least for me. I have tons of little pieces, tickets and pressed flowers and tiny shit like that to put into it, but I never have the time. I never have the right pieces. I never have the right blank page. And journal entries themselves have been really scarce. While bullet journaling really is good for tackling a lot of things at once, I am not.
So I've decided it's time for another change. For December I will dedicate my bullet journaling to writing only (as I have all my school deadlines online, on my desktop and in my phone so I see them constantly and couldn't miss them even if I tried) and I bought a planner for the next year. Really cheap, weekly one, with a black cover. Perfect.
You see, I never used planners, because they can be really expensive and I felt guilty not using the space to its full potential because there weren't that many things going on. Or there were, but I did not want to talk about them, ever. I kinda hope now, that the same guilt will force me to use that space with anything I can - writing or doodling or inserting little pictures I get, whatever. I think, that if I manage to set aside time for regular writing - like I did during NaNo and plan to continue going forward - including couple extra minutes to journal should be easy.
Or easier. We'll see. I've picked the colour scheme and goals for the next year and I've lied out the spare pages and everything. Wish me luck. And I wish you a life worth remembering in return.
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