The concept of journaling is rooted in a deep desire to know and express oneself. It’s a form of escapism that presents itself in a creative domain. There are different types of journaling, such as straightforward writing, bullet journals, and junk journals, all of which have their benefits and appeal to trying them out. I’ve tried my hand at a few of them, and I can honestly say the act of journaling my everyday life has helped me learn more about myself.
When I first picked up a journal, I was so stressed about it having the perfect, aesthetic look that I see all over Pinterest, and it made me not even want to put my thoughts on paper anymore. But I needed an outlet to not only let out my thoughts but to have some place to be creative that doesn’t take up too much space. And so I got deep into looking at different journal types and what each one looks like. I liked different aspects of each and knew it would be just like before, where I try to confine myself to a certain look. I loved to free-flow write, but also the organization and habits of a bullet journal, and as a collector of everything I love, I valued the idea of junk journaling to memorialize my life in that way. So last year, I eventually just decided to combine them all into one, and it’s worked so well for me. When I talk to people, I call it my junk journal, but it’s really my everything. I utilize pages to track my habits and to dump all the things I’ve collected that I want to remember; that’s the beauty of not being constricted.
As a sentimental girlie, whenever I go out with friends or buy cute blind boxes, I love to hold on to packaging and clippings from where I’ve been. It’s like a little piece of it staying with me, and it pains me to throw it away. So when I realized I could incorporate those clippings into my journal, my pages were filled with local business cards, travel maps, coffee shop stickers, cute clothing tags, and much more. Having a specific place to store all of these items that I consider to be memories helps my brain with the anxiety that I feel when I think I’m losing something. I’ve also always been one of those girlies that will collect stickers but keep them in the sticker sheet because I’m terrified of “wasting” them, and so my favorite stickers never get used. Guess where I put them now—where I don’t feel guilty about it?
Journaling has honestly been so therapeutic in the sense that I can feel creative in a space that doesn’t have any rules of confinement. My pages don’t have to look a certain way or say certain things; they just have to make me feel safe and have fun. I mean, some of my pages are just straight up the receipt for a take-out order, and the journey of obtaining the food, but using stickers and stamps, I can transform the page into a work of art.Â
So now I will be taking my hobby of journaling into 2026 and hopefully making it more consistent in my life.