Journaling Through Life

I've been journaling on and off for most of my life. It's a natural foundation for writing fiction since both involve capturing moments, feelings, and emotions.

I wouldn't say that I have always been consistent with journaling; on the contrary, I sometimes go months or even years without writing a word in my journal. When I was in college, I was fairly good at journaling every day. I actually still have the journal that I used in college; whenever I want a good laugh, I'll crack it open.

I used to have a very standard way of writing. Date, dear diary or journal. I also wrote in cursive (something I do at work when I don't want my students to be able to glance at my writing and read it). When I was growing up, I wrote like this in my diary - the kind that had a lock on it that easily could have been broken by just pulling the glue loose from the cover - and wrote things about my crush on the pastor's son and my hopes and dreams for the future.

When I reached college, I journaled less frequently but found it a good way to work through feelings that I wasn't comfortable sharing with anyone. How classes were going, how my relationships were going, things like that. I still included dates, but these were included much less often.

Journaling quickly fell off when I graduated and started a career, though it might have benefited me more if I had. I was living in new places, far from my friends and family for the first time in my life, and there were a lot of things that I dealt with personally.

Eventually, I started therapy, and my therapist suggested that I get back to journaling. I wasn't even going to pretend that I was going to do it every day, but I tried at least a couple of times a week.

I found it to be a big help during a big breakup, but even more so when I spent the night in the ER for a blood transfusion and was trying to get through the fear and stress of everything that followed. I had long since stopped therapy when funds started getting tight, so all that I had was my journal.

Even this blog has been a type of journaling, with the extension of sharing some of my thoughts instead of keeping them to myself. It has been extremely therapeutic, as well as helpful to keep myself writing something even when I'm feeling creatively stuck.

Whenever I have big decisions to make, or something is stressing me out and I don't know why, I go back to my journal. It's even to the point that my boyfriend will suggest journaling because writing is how I process things. I suppose it's a byproduct of being an overthinker - there are often so many thoughts and emotions swirling around in my head that I can't untangle unless I can see the words on a page.

Or a note on my phone.

My notes app has also been a lifesaver, taking dictation when I have thoughts while driving and serving as a secret place for some of my innermost thoughts. Thoughts that sometimes I never want anyone to know, that can be locked with face ID.

But from these sources, I've found endless fodder for my writing. The emotions and feelings that I write down give me real-world examples for my characters, helping to give them a sense of realism that would not exist if I had not experienced them in some form.

So I will continue to journal when I can, capturing all of my thoughts and emotions to either clear my mind or use for my writing. Whether you're a writer or not, in therapy or not, or even just an overthinker, you might find that journaling is a good practice to have.