Writing has always been the medium I’ve used to express myself, my thoughts, and my feelings, hence why I became a staff writer for Her Campus (as well as an avid Twitter user). When Instagram introduced the story feature many years ago and later the text feature, I was in heaven. Any moment of the day, I could write a lengthy caption about something involving the Kardashians or a moment in this country’s politics, and I embraced every part of it. Yet, for someone whose go-to has always been words and writing, I surprisingly haven’t taken to journaling as enthusiastically as I thought I would.
I could never find it in myself to actively commit to keeping a journal or a diary of some sort for the events of my everyday life. It felt too mundane, like a chore or homework. Plus, writing for an extensive period made my hand ache and my handwriting sloppy, and if there was one thing, I was notorious for at school- it was my ‘bad’ handwriting. Then as I entered my teens and high school in the mid-2010s, there was a bombardment of desires for ‘aesthetic’ due to the influence of social media platforms like Pinterest, Tumblr, and Instagram. Suddenly everyone became obsessed with Stabilo pastel highlighters, Typo buffalo journals, and trying to style their homework and class notes to replicate the likes of various ‘studyblr’ accounts on the internet.
Then came the reign of bullet journals, which upon a quick Pinterest and TikTok search, are still very much a thing. I hit a very rough patch with my mental health in my teens, and due to the early years of self-care culture- where everyone thought self-care meant Lush face masks and bath bombs- I was advised by many well-meaning friends to journal in an attempt to collect and organize my thoughts. I tried hard to sit and pour out my heart and soul into the pages of an empty Typo journal that was meant to be my homework diary. However, confronting those feelings and emotions inside just made me angrier and aggravated my emotional state – like a tap that’s water wouldn’t stop gushing out
Journaling is still something that is highly recommended in therapy, self-care, and wellness circles to this day, as introspection and the prioritisation of mental health and emotional wellbeing are being brought to the forefront of our discussions about what self-care means. Everywhere I look on TikTok, Pinterest and Instagram, is some influencer posting a low-exposure picture of their Five-Minute Journal alongside their yoga mats and morning green juices or coffee. Type the word ‘journaling’ into Pinterest, and you will be greeted with a host of 30-day journal challenges, all having something to do with gratitude or happiness and positivity. I hate to be that person who tries to rain on everyone’s parade with their pessimism, but I’ve found this view and portrayal of journaling incredibly unappealing in the sense that it always felt very performative, too calculated and perfect to be a part of something that deals with some of the messiest emotions and internal feelings that are known to humans.
Then over the past year, something changed my perspective on journaling. I recently became enamoured with the work of the late Joan Didion, who wrote extensively about the importance of writing and keeping a journal to remember certain moments and words to write about at a later stage. Not to have a visceral account of events to prove a point in an argument, but simply to remember certain instances to be able to write and reflect about them again at a later stage. I started to use journaling as part of my writing, mental processing, and the compartmentalization of my thoughts and emotions.
Journaling can look like anything you want it to be. It’s your thoughts and emotions that are being dealt with when you put pen to paper or finger to keyboard. Your thoughts and feelings deserve to be respected, in the way you see fit, not what popular opinion and imagery conveyed by social media suggest. Use Twitter or Instagram as your journal if you please (Lord knows I do). If you can’t commit to journaling every morning at 6 am – don’t. When the moment finds you, it will find you, and then you can delve deep into those feelings and spaces as you wish.