Write It Out

Hi! I hope you had and are having an amazing day and weekend! And if you’re reading this after the weekend, I’m really sorry and I hope this week goes well and you get to the weekend, or a day off, really fast!

I had a pretty good week. Winter Jam last Sunday was a lot of fun. It was the first time in a while I got to hang out with my brother, so that was awesome. And we got to see a couple of our favorite artists, so that was great.

I apparently cannot bounce back from things like that like I used to because I ended up calling out Monday morning. I slept until 10, which is completely unheard of, so I guess my body needed it.

The rest of the week was good. And we got to wear jerseys to work on Friday to go along with our causal Friday jeans, so that was a lot of fun.

This week’s post is the one I’ve been excited about, but also dreading. I know that sounds weird, but hear me out. This post is about my main journal. Do you know how daunting it is to try and tackle this one to explain my process for this journal? If you don’t know, I’m here to tell you that it’s incredibly daunting.

I have been doing this journal since July 31st. I’m on my second actual journal, and I hope that I continue going strong on this one. It has been so good for me to do this journal because it is where I can elaborate on the other things I have written in my other journals.

This is the journal where stickers make themselves really known. This is where they are the star. So, this is where I have been struggling in trying to figure out how exactly this one works. Hopefully I’ve gotten to the right place just to show you how I work it in.

The first step in my journaling is to go through the sticker collection to find the stickers that speak to me about the day.

I gather all the stickers that I want to use to describe my day on a piece of sticker sheet that has already been cleared of all the stickers. It helps me to keep them all in one place so I don’t have to start writing and then go searching for the right stickers. I actually started out that way, but this way works much better for me.

The page always starts with a border. Most of my sticker books come with borders that go along with the theme of the book. I just go through and get the borders in order of the way I go through the books. I love the borders and think they just add a little something to the page.

The next step is adding the sticker to write the date on. All of the books pretty much have these too, so I have been doing those in the order they come. I’ve pretty much been in the same book for what feel like ever because the book has 4 pages of the same sets of stickers. But I’m almost finished with that one.

And next to that sticker, I add a little sticker that just adds a little something-something. It’s little stickers that I know probably won’t really be used much elsewhere, so I give them a home there.

And then it’s honestly a free for all. Which is what made me dread writing this one so much. There’s not a rhyme or reason for half the stuff I do after the initial beginning.

I can give you a little rundown of things that seem to make an appearance fairly often. On weekdays, I use a little money symbol when I talk about work. Ya know, because I work at a credit union, with money. It just makes sense.

Friday’s get a “Fri-Yay” sticker, and at the end of the writing for that day, it gets a “Weekend” sticker.

Sunday’s get a “Sunday Funday” sticker, and always get a cross of some kind on the day as well.

At the end of each day, I put a random sticker. It’s usually a sticker that might not get used anywhere else, and is something really cute. I just like to end the day on something fun.

And really, that’s mostly all there is to organization with this one. BUT that’s not all I have to say in the matter.

Like I’ve said, I’ve had a hard time figuring out how to address this journal. I guess the best way to describe it, is it’s a place to vent, talk-out, decide, contemplate, and remember. I talk about my day, my frustrations, my dreams, my goals, my anxiety, and anything other emotion I might be feeling. Sometimes there’s a sticker for it; sometimes there isn’t. And that’s okay.

There are nights I don’t necessarily want to journal. Sometimes I’ve had a long day and it just seems daunting. But usually, I still do it. Even if I just write a paragraph, I keep to my routine. And there are times I don’t go through all my stickers. Most weeknights, I don’t take the time to go through all of them. I usually have a feel for what I’m looking for and know what sticker book to find it in. So, I don’t follow an exact science with each night; I just do what I can or what I feel like at the time. But if I didn’t journal one night, that’s totally okay too.

That’s a huge lesson I had to teach myself. If I miss a day, that doesn’t mean I have to give up. Doing something in a routine three days out of the week is better than not doing it at all. You can’t just give up because you missed a day. That doesn’t make you a failure, that makes you a human. We all get busy. We all get tired. We all miss days of things we want to do. It happens. Just get back on the horse the next day.

I learned this lesson because I went on vacation. Now, you’ve seen my sticker collection. There was no way I was going to pack up my entire collection, plus all my journals, and then get them all out at the end of the day. It wasn’t necessary. Did I think about it and almost pack them? Yes. But I restrained myself. I took my planner and my Cultivate Journal. I took just a couple sticker books that I use for those two journals. And that’s what I did for the weekend.

And you know what? It worked. When I got home, I wrote in my other journals from what I wrote in my planner on the reflection of the days. I took the time to go through all my sticker books and find stickers that reflected what I wanted to say about the weekend trip I took.

Even if journaling isn’t something you want to tackle every night, I think it’s a great tool every once in a while. Sometimes, there are things you just need to get off your chest, or you want to write down things to remember. Journaling can be such a good therapy tool. My counselor and I talk about journaling and how much it helps both of us.

I’m all about reflection these days, so being able to write out my daily reflection has become really important. The stickers, of course, help a lot to improve my mood because they make my pages pretty. But writing it all out has been so helpful.

Honestly, I feel like this post didn’t come together the way I really felt like I wanted it to. And I apologize for that. It’s a tough one to do, and I just wasn’t sure how to go about it fully. Hopefully the next post will be back up to what I envision for this blog.

And if there’s anything you’d like to see me talk about, please feel free to drop a comment or send me a message. I want you to enjoy the blog, so I want to write about the things you want to read.