My journey with journaling started when I got my first iPhone at age 27 (I think?) and downloaded the Day One app. I didn’t journal daily or even close, but just being able to look back on my previous posts and evaluate my previous state of mind was a boon for me. Something I had found hard to experience without the help of a journal.
Several years later during a time when I was living on my own and had a lot of free time on my hands, being unemployed, I picked up a paperbound notebook that was designed with a grid of dots on each page instead of lines for text and began drawing and writing down ideas and bits of each day as I lived it.
I went through several traditional paper notebooks this way, exploring everything from pretty good ink drawings of spacecraft of my own design to methodical Lewison renaming of the nine planets (Being in order: Lanis, Mearo, Maris, Iuppiter, Nadumas, Dumas, Trioma, and Dolores – you can guess which is which). I also got into writing original poetry this way though I was never prolific.
This time of prolific journal and drawing in my life brought healing and contentment to a hurting soul.
I haven’t used a paper journal lately, but I do use the Day One app almost every day to put down verses from my reading of the Bible, images that inspired me, and even AI generated images by myself on occasion. I would like to get back into drawing images either with a pen or pencil again, but that hasn’t happened for over a year now. But I have been thinking about it.
Really my main point is that keeping a journal doesn’t have to be hard or difficult. Just write posts/entries when you can and remember that every entry you make is a window into that day on future occasions. There are times I look back on a post from five years ago and say to myself “Really? You wanted a smoothie that bad?!” (bad enough to get up in the middle of the night and make it myself using the blender) and remember a time from years ago when things were simpler.
If you are artistic I would recommend a paperbound journal. You can find them at certain convenience stores such as CVS (down here in Florida) or even Walgreens I think. If you just want to dip you toes in I would suggest the Day One app, which has a free tier I’ve been using for years.
Journaling doesn’t have to be hard. Sometimes we just need to see the value of something before committing hard becomes possible.
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