Adventure of a lifetime
WE NEVER EXPECTED THIS…
If like me you’ve been journaling for some time, it may have been quite emotional looking back at December 2019 at New Year Resolutions and realizing none of your plans have the hope of seeing the light of day. I had ‘traveling’ as my big goal for 2020. I could not have picked a worse year to want to see the world.
Being a working mother has been thrilling and fulfilling on so many levels, but last year it dawned on me that I really should make more trips and see the world. I live in a very suburban village in Surrey and as lovely as it is, I’ve been feeling the pressing need to see more of Europe. Just the odd weekend away to see a new city or landscape. It wasn’t going to be lavish or fancy, but I felt it was long overdue.
I had four primary trips planned — a weekend for me alone, a romantic getaway for my husband and me, one big family summer holiday, and a girl’s spa weekend with my Mom. My first trip was going to be to Italy. In March. And then the news of the pandemic spreading across the whole world hit, and all of that fell by the wayside.
COVID-19 worried me long before lockdown but it has been truly astonishing how rapidly and totally it swept the globe and changed our lives. It left me in a state of anxiousness and fear. I feared for my children, my husband, my mother, and friends of mine with various conditions. It took my goal for an amazing year of world sightseeing in 2020 and turned me instead into a paranoid hermit afraid to go out of my own front door.
Journalling is the only thing that remained constant throughout the past few months. My life is not normal. I’m a newly created germophobe, who is trying to homeschool my children. That sentence in itself is so far removed from my normal life but it’s been good to make a point of keeping my journal as up-to-date as possible. Marking the days has been essential as our perception of time changes and the days start running into weeks and now even months with no end in sight.
What I love about writing in a journal is that it doesn’t have to be perfect, it doesn’t have to every day and there is no formula to stick to. It’s personal, and the only person who it benefits is you. It is the one time a day I get to be selfish and ignore the world while I lose myself in a journal the same way I do a good book.
If you are a new journal writer or you would like to get into keeping your own journal, here are some things to remember as you get started.
Remember:
1. You don’t have to journal every day. It’s good if you can, but don’t feel bad if you don’t.
2. Remember it’s not all going to be sweeping epic entries. This is not the Vampire Diaries. Life is monotonous right now and finding excitement is not always possible. However, it pays to write down small things. You’ll be surprised how much joy you’ll get looking back.
3. If you are creative, use the journal as an outlet. I have pages in my own journals of what looks like useless doodles and sketches. It doesn’t always have to be functional. It also helps me keep my thoughts together because not all thoughts are best represented in words. Do what you want. It’s your book.
4. Journalling is a great way to ensure that you regularly have some headspace to yourself. It’s so important during a time when everything is topsy-turvy. I’m a huge fan of the bullet journal system, so let me know if this is of interest and I’ll write more about it.
To start your own journal, have a look at some of the items in stock to help get you started.