Whispers in a journal

Are you one of those people that avidly collect notebooks only to write maybe one or two things down in each one? Or are you what we call a completionist: buy one notebook and fill it from cover to cover with thoughts, ideas, pictures, drawings, poems, stories, etc.? Wherever you fall on the line, or whether you’ve even written in a personal journal before, this episode is for you. In it, your host Christina reflects on the importance and value of personal record-keeping so we can understand where we came from, who we are now, and what we’d like to be in the future.

Welcome to Retail Your Story, the podcast dedicated to telling the stories of the material items we cherish the most. I’m your host, StinaGene. In this episode, we’re going to talk about something small enough to fit in your hand – or under your mattress, on your nightstand… maybe you even carry one around in your purse.  This item makes every office supplies store trip worthwhile, and it’s easy to find yourself with more of them than you can use at one time. Do you know what I’m talking about? Well, I’ll give you a hint: It’s not writing pens. But if you’re going to buy one of these, then you should probably get some new ones of those while you’re at it.

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  It’s a warm evening in early Fall here in Richmond, VA. I meet up with an artist friend at Gather Arts District. She’s going to teach me something new today. As always, I’m filled with excitement at the prospect. Gather is a beautiful piece of modern architecture located in downtown Richmond. Its interior is made up of rough-hewn brick walls, soft lighting, with long work tables running down the center just begging creators to release their creations on them. 

  It is here where my friend takes me through a 1:1 journal-making class. Yep, you heard me correctly – a journal-making class. Where you learn how to physically construct your own personal journal from scratch materials. 

  You pick the color scheme, design your own cover art, even how many pages you want. 

  Then, you bind it all together by hand and voila! You have your very own journal. 

  That’s what she’s going to be teaching me today. 

  You might find yourself asking, “Stina, why a journal? Can’t you just buy one of those at the store?”

  If you’re the kind of person who writes in journals or at least collects journals with the intention of writing in them, then you understand the need to have the perfect journal for every circumstance. When it comes to these little notebooks, one size certainly does not fit all, and I’m the kind of person – the kind of journalist – who needs very specific journals for very specific things. 

  I have my Goals Journal, my Dream Journal, my Travel Journal (neglectfully more empty than I would like it to be – I’m too in the moment when I travel to write anything), my Work Journal, Poetry Journals (plural), and of course, my Freedom Mastery Journal, where I can write my secrets in and then toss it in the microwave to have them erased from the page. 

  See? Told you – I need a journal for every occasion. Every new chapter of my life needs a brand new scratchpad with a pretty cover to go along with it so I can record and process my experiences.

  So, now you see why the prospect of now being able to make one of my own design sounds so… appealing. 

  Sometimes, the thing you need can’t be bought in the store. Think about it: a lot of effort went in to making the person you are today – you are full of unique and wonderful things that took time, experience, and a little bit of trial and error. 

  Wouldn’t your perfect item where you’re whispering all your inner secrets or thoughts require the same ingredients? 

  I started journaling in 1989, when I was a little girl who just a few years before learned how to write and spell her name.  

  My first journal was small and had a purple cover – very cute, girlish. 

  I hadn’t thought about that little purple book in years. That is, until very recently, when I was watching the movie Sisters starring Tina Fey and Amy Poehler. There’s a scene where the two women go back to their childhood home as adults and are going through some of their old stuff. 

  One of the sisters pulls out what was her childhood journal and begins to read from it.  The emotional impact of the scene was lost on me at first as I became fixated on its little purple cover. 

  Where had I seen it before? Why did it look so familiar? Then it hit me with the force of a bullet train (train horn sound) – I had had that exact same journal! 

  Thankfully I’m sentimental and kept the thing. I dug it out from its hiding place, cracked open the well-worn spine, and began to read what little me had written a lifetime ago. 

  Now, I’ve been journaling a lot since I first started – what’s written on every page reflects me, who I a/was at that time of my writing those words. A lot of my old journals are a little on the angsty side – teenage drama, boys, family issues.

  You know, the usual. But this little purple journal came into my life before all that. It’s still a shining beacon of childhood innocence and is charming if not a little cringe-worthy. Upon reading the first page, I was reminded yet again why I keep every journal I ever purchase.  Already brimming with ideas and ambition, little me had filled the first page with travel goals, of all the places she wanted to see one day. 

  Two of these places were France and Italy. I don’t even think I knew much about either one at the time I was writing in this little book – they just seemed interesting, sophisticated, exotic. Places where interesting people went to do interesting things with the people who lived there. 

  That little girl would be proud because she may have thought that was a far-out idea, but while in my 20’s my first international trip was to France and Italy and I have been back on multiple occasions. 

  As I stand at one of the worktables in Gather, I’m picking through the materials available to me in an effort to find the right combination. These journals my friend makes are all the same basic design – wood cover, spine, with paper folded and sewn into the binding with colored thread. 

  But there are little things a person can do to make each creation unique. Since they’re being made by hand, they’re all gonna look slightly different from the mistakes and choices made during its production. Very much like people, in a way. I settle for sophisticated, feminine colors – blush pink, rose gold.  As I make this thing, learning and laughing with my friend, I’m already thinking about what I’m going to write in it. 

  I have journals hidden all around my house, each one with a specific secret enclosed within its covers. 

  Some I leave out in the open – it doesn’t matter if someone picks it up and reads it. 

  Others are so well hidden, not even I know where they are anymore. Those will be the ones I leave instructions for my family to burn after my death. Or better yet, I’ll find them and burn them myself before I go. Everyone has their secrets. Even me. As a teenager and young person, my journals were full of negative things. It was a way for me to talk about and work through the things making me upset or angry at the time. 

  It’s healthy to be angry sometimes, and it’s healthy to be able to express that anger, to expel it in privacy. However, that’s not how I journal anymore. Certainly, I get angry. I have had sad things happen in this life, things that have hurt, things I need to get out. But I look at journaling now as a practice in mindfulness. I exhale the bad, inhale the good.

  Me writing in a journal isn’t just a rant fest (at least, not usually), but rather serves as reflection time, as a time for me to have a conversation with myself about what happened, be it good or bad or somewhere in between. 

  What has happened? How do I feel about it? Why did I act the way I did, and is there something I can learn from this moving forward? 

  I have done things in life that I regret, things I would rather not look back on. But the act of writing things down so they can be read again is a way for me to hold myself accountable for my own actions and stands as proof of how much I have grown and learned. 

  Sometimes, we’re too in the moment – we think we’ll never change, our emotions will always be there, our thoughts about a thing will stay as they are. Journaling is proof that that is not true. 

  There was one time a few years ago where one of my nieces called me up. She was upset with her parents and needed someone to talk to. I listened to her teenage woes and remembered feeling what she was feeling many years ago now. 

  “I want to read you something,” I said. And then I read for her a section of one of the journals I had kept when I was her age, about a time when I was going through the exact same thing. 

  “Whoa,” she said. “Were you just reading from a book?” 

  I laughed a little and told her no, I was reading from one of my journals, which cataloged a moment in time just like the one she was living. 

  It was proof that she wasn’t alone in what she was going through, and that things would change. She knows for a fact that I don’t harbor those same negative feelings towards my parents, now her grandparents.  At least, not any I’ll express in that same way.

  I encourage you, listeners, to be your own historian. Surround yourself with things that serve as a reflection of you and the life you lived, and take note of the amazing things you’ve done, the kind of life you choose to live.  You won’t regret having something so small as a notebook to flip through and smile at when you’re approaching the end of your days.

  So, I say goodbye to my friend and walk out of Gather, newly made journal in hand. I’m embarking on another birthday, about to move out of my first ever purchased home, and do all sorts of other new and exciting life things. I can’t wait to live them and then write them.