(this video ended up being less visually interesting than I had intended. sorry about that!)

Earlier this month I decided it would be super fun to play Jenga with the boxes in our storage closet in order to dig out some old journals. I wanted to do a little retrospective and consider how my journaling style, process, and influences have changed over the years.

I ended up having more ~thoughts and feelings~ about all of this than I thought I would, so this is merely part one, covering my very first diary at the age of 7 to my spiral notebook era in middle school, and my first journaling influence, Jessica Wilber’s Totally Private and Personal.

Rereading journals is always an interesting experience. Invariably I come across things I forgot happened (some I would honestly be better off not remembering). It’s also enlightening to see that at 14 I was writing about a lot of the same stuff that I do today— family dynamics and personal struggles. Things change, but they also don’t.

Journaling has saved my life on more than one occasion and I’m glad the (much) younger version of myself had the urge to put pen to paper.

Coming soon: more notebooks! Spanning high school to college or possibly grad school? We’ll see. Leave any specific Q’s in the comments!

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The Workbooks

a (not so) brief history of journaling, pt. 1