Journal Journey

I haven’t kept a paper journal in… so long, I can’t quite pinpoint it. I think the last time I tried, my nephews were still in diapers, so more than a decade. Not truly for fear of anyone reading it; unless they want to be concerned by erratic mood swings or bored to tears, I’ve never quite had an exciting day-to-day life. I could pick apart my life to make a riveting memoir but the reality of a daily journal would be less than entertaining. Weeks of depression or babbling manic episodes— so, yeah, maybe my blog kind of does that too, but I’ve attempted to summarize it rather than subject anyone to a play-by-play.

I became a bit practical about the practice of journaling. Do I want people finding and likely misinterpreting the unfiltered babbling? Do I ever want to subject myself to reading it? Do I want my garbage to take up more and more physical space? Do I even have the ego to place any importance on it? There weren’t really any positives to it. I have trouble approaching sketchbooks when they’re too pretty, even. It feels like they should hold more valuable things than impulses. I end up using cheap lined notebooks. Not really because I feel my efforts are unworthy, just because if it’s crap, the really nice notebooks don’t have the perforated pages and the bindings will come loose if I pull out the ‘unworthy’ pages later. I have come to grips with being a fickle creature that loves some things I hated before and vice versa. Items of permanence often don’t keep my interest; I give away or finalize them and don’t look at them again. My dolls are often always picked at, reworked, reposed or dusted to become ‘new’ again.

But journals lost all appeal so long ago, especially as a daily practice. How do I feel? I don’t always have an answer to that. Okay, I guess. Mostly tired or restless. What are my plans, my goals, my dreams? I might talk about following my dreams but it is not an ideal I can summarize. My dream is ever-changing and variable, like every other aspect of myself. Evolving characters in my stories is second-nature because I understand quite intimately how rapid or stubborn change can be. I have childish tendencies that remain, where some aspects of my self are restless and undecided. So I guess I’m capable of diving into more interesting subjects but then my lack of ego kicks in and I get annoyed. How much can I actually write about myself? Because my social life has always been scarce, that’s the bulk of my experience: me.

Yet, I received a beautiful hand-bound leather journal, embossed and crimson and demanding a practice I long abandoned. Random won’t quite cut it. Structured is absolutely out. I’ve thought about using it as a way to cultivate hobbies I’ve been neglecting. I’ve thought about writing it like a tutorial for my projects, but assuming the person following it already knows all the terminology because I will also fast lose interest in describing all of it to myself as if I were learning all over again. Sometimes that might be a fun challenge, appealing to the teacher in me, other times off-putting and tedious.

So I think I’ll start it tomorrow. Find a pen I like for it first then attempt to craft and record what I’ve done and discovered. Record my adventures from any approach I feel like. Give myself permission to be tedious and boring or optimistic and descriptive. To be vague or detail-obsessed. And rather than making it a wasted book of ‘dear diary, today I was sad’, I can give myself a little challenge to prompt it. What thing that is mundane and normal to me might be fascinating to others if I approached it fearlessly?

Today, I stood up my favorite male doll on a stand and simply admired how much I adore looking at him at his full height. My warrior is not meant to sit. Tomorrow I may work on his armor. Or I’ll work on the princess he guards. Perhaps I’ll work on her diminutive form, shorter hair, softer makeup, discreet but relentless feminine power in any form.

I’ll give this journal a little push. It might stick, become something focused and scheduled. Maybe not. But I will make a go of it. I’m in need of a new approach so perhaps this will be a catalyst in a change I sorely want. Like with my blog, why not let it take on an organic role? What blooms from the chaos in me usually sprouts wildly from the least likely possibility. Something a decade old and dusty might be the start of an adventure.