We have all seen those teen coming-of-age movies where there is a scene where the main character writes in a diary, and it gets leaked by the mean girl later in the movie. The main girl is so embarrassed by it, but it’s okay because the popular guy she has a crush on and wrote about in her diary actually has a crush on her too! Although the odds of that actually happening is slim to none, we all deserve to have some main character energy in our lives. And my way of channeling that energy is trying to keep a journal.
Sometimes for nostalgia, I go back and read to few journal entries from my middle school and early high school days. I look back and just cringe at what I wrote. It was like a news article of the drama at the time and random stories of my friends and me. I tried so many times to actually have the habit of journaling because it was the nostalgia of reading them years into the future that I loved. After the wild year of 2020, I really took the time to reflect on my life as a 20-year-old and what kind of person I want to be. I also want to document my journey of becoming that person, and I think the perfect way to do that is journaling.
I already may have missed a few days already but considering that it’s already February and I journaled almost every day is quite an achievement for me. I decided to make it as easy on me as possible by writing in bullet points and limiting days to only one page. This way, I am only spending about 20 minutes max on a journal entry, and as a busy art student, that is a perfect amount of time. I always alternate writing in the morning and at night, but I definitely prefer at night since it gives me more things to write about. Treating my journal as my way to dump thoughts has taken the pressure of having a movie-perfect journal off my back and made it less stressful. I don’t bother to make it look pretty nor write in full sentences. I don’t bother to fill the entire page if I don’t need to. There have been days where I only wrote one single bullet point because that may have been my only thought that day.
Writing down my thoughts on things and events during the day really lets me see if there are any patterns in my thoughts and see if there is something I want to work on personally. I read the previous week, and if I made any mistakes, I can correct them in the current week. Even if you think you are the best version of yourself right now, a little journaling can offer that little room of comfort where you can be vulnerable and continue to keep being the best version of yourself. That is what I hope to achieve by journaling in 2021.