my many journals

I saw a post saying "I have a terrible sense of loss for the unrecorded" and it resonated so deeply with me. I want to write about how I feel in every moment, see how those feelings change in hindsight, I want to write about things that I'm bound to forget otherwise. I'm terrified of forgetting, I'm nostalgic to a fault (and probably hoarding tendencies) and I crave to keep as much of every moment (good or bad) as I can. Sometimes I read an old entry where I was miserable and anxious about something that turned out completely fine, or even better than I could've imagined, and give my younger self a sympathetic laugh. Sometimes I write a sad, depressed entry and hope future me will do the same. 

Anyway, I keep a few journals and I wanna talk about them a bit! I got this idea from someone on tiktok who was explaining what they put in their commonplace book and I thought I'd go through what I use each of my journals for as huge journaling freak. Unfortunately, I'm not as neat and organised as those #aesthetic people who share their journals online, because despite trying many times I just cannot be bothered to be consistent with that and I cannot commit myself to curating my life for an online audience to enjoy and pin on a pinterest board.

 the journal 

Let's start with that light blue one. This is the most basic one, this is what you'd expect when you hear about journaling, I guess. I mostly write about my feelings there, as well as things that have happened in my life, big and small, good and bad, just anything that I'm thinking about. I've been keeping this kind of a journal pretty much since I could write, I have some from early school years, written in big, messy letters. Maybe I'll write about my old journals one day. Anyway, it's always been a pretty important thing for me to keep a diary or a journal or whatever you might call it.

Since 2022 I always got a new notebook every January, always the same one — a grey, 80 page lined notebook from muji (this one). It'd become my little 2nd of January ritual, going to the little muji shop and picking up some stationary along with it. I always managed to fill it out almost perfectly, usually I'd have a couple pages left, or I'd run out a couple weeks early. This year because I live in a different city and because I already ran out of space in my 2025 one mid october, I got a completely different one. I treated myself to a much thicker moleskine notebook that I found for like a quarter of the original price in tkmaxx. And I love it, the paper is really smooth and hopefully it'll last me a bit longer this time.  

scrapbook/junk journal

Next in like is the black notebook with lots of stickers! This is my junk journal. Pretty self-explanatory, I put everything in there. Scraps of paper, tickets, receipts, pieces of packaging, whatever can be glued somewhat flat on a piece of paper. Sometimes, I write short summaries of what I did when travelling (places I visited, cafes, restaurants, events) as well. This is also where my songs and poetry live; I (usually quite messily) jot down chords, lyrics, little pieces of ideas.

junk journal - some wrapping paper, napkin, shopping list and a receipt from a cafe i went to with a friend

 

5 year journal 

The little pink notebook is a birthday gift I got from my friend Sophie for my 21st birthday. It's from flying tiger and it's one of the best, most me gifts I've ever gotten. There's a little handwritten note on the first page saying to use it to document my early twenties. Every page is for one day and it's divided in 5 sections, each for another year. So I write what I did on, say January 20th every year. I don't write in in daily, usually sit down with it once every month or two and put whatever I think deserves to go in there, sometimes it's travelling, spending time with friends or family, sometimes just very boring daily things like "made good pasta for dinner" or "finished reading this book."

 commonplace book (i guess)

This is the brown, serious-looking one. I'm gonna be so honest with you, I have no idea what a commonplace book/journal actually is, but from what I've seen people say it's pretty much what I do with this journal. Here, I write anything that doesn't belong in any of the other notebooks. Sometimes it's reviews for movies I watched and albums I listened to, knitting pattern notes, many lists (for example "silly reasons I cried" or simply a wishlist I can refer to when I have some extra money). In a previous one of these I wrote notes for uni readings and things I needed to remember for uni in general. It's like a junk journal, but for words.

A noticeable flaw in my journal system is the fact that I don't keep a planner of any kind, but that's my phone calendar's job. I tried to have a bullet journal or a planner, but I always end up forgetting about it after a week, so it's absolutely useless in my case.

And that's all! This is a much sillier post than my usual ones, but it was fun to yap about my journals #myjournals to you all.