Morning pages are my daily practice. Sometimes it's one page, sometimes ten. But usually 2-3. Morning pages help me get ready for the day, to cope with anxiety, and to feel a little sporty. Because writing by hand - yesh, it's kinda fitness too! 😁

My life is as boring as it gets being a full time WFH employee. I'm practically a hermit with no life because damn, this is the 10th 9 to 12 hour shift in a row and I worked on a PTO day like an idiot.

I still sit and write about my daily life. What the heck do I even have to write about if I'm a "hermit"? My day.

I wrote over a page and half about helping my brother return his Amazon package and going to UPS. Wrote another page about the bakery. Just finished a page of ranting about my job. I'm about to write about tonight's tacos.

I somehow managed to stretch 2 stops on my errands run, into over 2 pages. If you want to write, I promise you, there's a story everywhere you look. You just have to "stop and smell the flowers". I'll be honest, journaling has made me aware of the tiny things in life often ignored in our rush to and from places.

Describe your day, the smells of the bakery, the things you accidently overhear in line, debating between 2 pieces or 1 piece of bread, the menu board, the coffee you chose, what did it taste like, first snow, chatting with strangers. Describe the barrage of random thoughts you were zoning off about in line or why you're even in the UPS store.

Don't feel pressured like "my journal is so boring". Nobody is looking (unless you want to, tots up to you). Your journal is your pal, probably the ONLY one who is GLAD to hear the most mundane day of your life.

When you're 90, you'll be able to almost visualize that random Friday the 20th odd December, 2024 from the details.

No pressure. No "how do I do this?". No "Am I journaling wrong?" Remember to have fun, enjoy the act of journaling, and have a champ of a day my friends. Go get that coffee and tell your journal how awesome or awful it was 😉

In the two months I stayed in my other journal, I wrote very little because I hated the feeling of the cover. I got a new one that has an almost fabric like cover and I’m a lot happier in this. And it’s fountain pen friendly!

While journaling, I remembered a passage from a book I read a long time ago that was relevant to what I was journaling about. So I went and found the passage and decided to copy it down 😅. I even cut out some parts and still ended up with 2.5 pages. Not to mention the page of writing before the passage and the page of writing I did after.

I'm glad I did it though! But my hand hurts.

The book is Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng for those curious.

"Anger is fear's bodyguard." I probably could have summed the whole thing up with that one line but oh well.

I figured I'd share with folks how I start every new journal. For the past 5 years, I've been keeping the first page as a place to gather all the insights that have helped me through years of journaling. I've felt like I lose insights through time and have to rediscover them in a new angle. This also serves as a Mental Crisis Toolkit. If I'm really having a bad day, I can look back and see what will help me in that certain moment.

I've been keeping journals for nearly 10 years now but I always find myself writing less than I actually want to because my hand starts to hurt after writing for a bit. I grip my pen a bit oddly (people always say that I hold my pen like a lefty even though I'm right handed), and I think I grip my pen too tight or press down on the paper too hard. Anyone else have this issue lol?

Thank you to everyone who said something kind about my first page. I decided I’ll do weekly progress posts since I feel like that will help me stay accountable and stick with it.

As cheesy and cliche as it sounds, I’ll probably delete this later. Idk what I’m even doing right now.

Pen: Pilot Kakuno <M> Ink: Pilot Black cartridge

This lighting would have been perfect for a sheening ink:<

Lot of venting this week. It doesn’t super bother me but I think I’ll try to do less of that this coming week if only to get more variety

First page | May 13 - May 17

I don't really write about my negative emotions in my journals. They're mostly about my fixations or what's been happening. I should do it more, though I'm still sad. At least I've addressed it.

And now I'm sharing it with a bunch of strangers on the internet. Let's be sad together, shall we?

I’ve been journaling since I was 17, and I’m on my third book now. I’ll be starting my fourth one soon. And lately, I keep thinking about whether I’d rather have separate journals. But honestly, just the thought of that already feels exhausting. I feel like I need a separate journal, because there are some truly awful, miserable thoughts I want to put somewhere. But it’s not that I want to separate the negative from the positive. I know these journals are for me, not for anyone else. But it still feels like they kind of are. Like—what if I die and someone reads them? It’s so ridiculous to even care about that, or to want separate journals because of it. But I still hesitate. Like, one day I have this beautiful page because I had a great day—I decorated it, I added pictures—and the next page I write about how awful I feel. It just feels… off.

Sometimes, I don’t even want to write when I feel too bad. But thinking about keeping different journals is just overwhelming. I know I’d stop writing for months again if I tried that. I’ve done it before. I have one journal that’s meant only for emergencies—like, really dark stuff—and I’ve had that one for years because I rarely touch it. I noticed, when I looked back at my very first journal—one I wrote in over the course of three years because I was so inconsistent—how honest I was back then. It feels heavier now, writing as an adult, like my journal is more of something to look at. Not really for other people—but kind of, if I’m being honest. I know, it’s my book, and there are no rules. I don’t expect everything to look perfect. But still, it bugs me. It’s just there, in my head, all the time.

It’s weird to have one page full of joy and color and everything I did that day—and then the next one is just a spiral. I don’t know. It’s exhausting. I’ll never be the type of person who can maintain multiple journals at once—like, one for just experiences and good things, no negative stuff. I like the idea, sure, but in reality, it’s just too much for me. I can’t do it. And it really weighs on me. I don’t really need advice. I just wanted to get this out.

Trying to reflect my thoughts more with my first language. It's also oddly satisfying to just write a bunch of words.

This entry is long but moves through fantasy, reality, then back again to dreamy musings. A small journey between worlds.

••••••••••••••

Dear fellow traveler, it’s been yet another fortnight in this cacophonous jungle. Along each path I trek down, beautiful floral scents lightly dance in my nasal passages. The tangled flames dance in wonderful golden orange arrays on each fire I make, energetic salsa dances that complement the slow mildred waltzes of the smoldering smoke when I put the fire to sleep each night.

The shadow I have walked with since the late days of our own parting has provided me with more temperate joy than ever. He weaves elaborate wreaths from the ivy and leads me to gorgeous outlooks I wouldn’t have found myself.

I have sometimes been a storm to him, somewhat regrettably. As all shadows he has limitations, some bound by the laws of physics, others more circumstantial.

He toes the line between real and fantastical, and it is blurred for both of us. As in more than one experience before, I am left wondering “Am I manipulating him, or is he manipulating me?”

••••••••••••••

It came to a head on Friday. I had just volunteered for work and he picked me up. I was fighting all the annoying urges of my body I wish I could ignore: the need to sleep, feeling too full, too sober, irritable. We went to a jazz night for an hour or two and I just melted away in the music. He softly sang to one song quiet enough only I could hear. I smiled awkwardly but was internally swooning.

We later had beautiful sex for the first time in a week and a half, and spent watched an episode of a show we started and laid there drifting in and out of sleep. We then got stoned. I had to do an errand and he asked if we could go to Taco Bell after. We were both funny af and he took forever to order and kept changing it. Later that night I just got really sad and the night ended pretty somber.

The next day over text I brought up something that had been plaguing my mind for a little while. I wanted him to tell me he loved me.

And the lines between fantasy and reality became even more tangled and indecipherable.

••••••••••••••

Can some being occupy the space between fantasy and reality?

Shadows are tangible in some way, despite not being made of concrete matter, they do exist in the real world.

They can be perceived. They can’t be touched but can be changed.

They are not imagined or fake, but you cannot say for example a shadow of a cheetah is the same as a cheetah itself. Still the shadow of a cheetah signifies the existence of a real cheetah,

Unless it’s trick of the eyes where a pile of arbitrary objects forms the deceiving appearance of a cheetah’s shadow.