💌 Five Years in Pages: A Love Letter to My Journals
Chronicles of Growth, Reflection, and Discovery
Dear bookcase of journals,
Writing down my experience daily these past five years has transformed my life.
And for this, I love you.
Reflecting on the Past
You were first there for me when my Polish grandpa Dziadzia passed away. I was ten years old, and I had never been in such an utter state of confusion. I didn’t know what a “hard attack” was. But I knew something was wrong – I had never seen my mom make such a face of deep sadness. But it was more than sadness. It was grief, but that was a new, foreign feeling for ten-year-old Jen.
I come to you because you make me feel safe. I get to have this container of expression no matter the day, time, or mood. I get the opportunity to share what is happening in my life, and I feel no judgment in return. You let me take control of the agenda for whatever I need. Thank you for allowing me to feel open to sharing. I am so blessed to show up each day and experience my life through your observational and empathetic pages.
The Early Days of Daily Journaling
I remember five years ago when I was 23 and first started this practice with you on April 1, 2019. I was a lost college grad after leaving my job in financial services. I lived with my parents in Michigan, working at three restaurants and attending Toastmasters to public speak weekly. I’d straighten my hair on Fridays to get more tips. I’d gone to an opening day of the Tigers baseball game and blacked out from a concoction of mimosas, beer, and rum. That following week, I’d adopt chipmunk cheeks from removing my wisdom teeth and binge Game of Thrones while recovering. With my journal, I started to notice my life more intently.
At the time, I was writing my first book and had major impostor syndrome recording a marketing video that I was an author, but I didn’t even have a consistent writing practice for myself. I was taking a cohort- based course online called “Build Your Life Resume” with Jesse Itzler. Journaling was a practice I’d always thought to take more seriously but never did until Jesse told me to start having monthly experiments. Daily journaling was at the top of that list. I wanted to have the experience of regularly reflecting my ideas onto the page.
The Magic of Journaling
With you, my imagination becomes tangible. It goes from this abstract sense of impossibility to a driveway leading up to a home that could someday be my reality. You are a welcoming mat to what my life could be, and then swing the door wide open. The world works in wild, magical ways where fired neurons in my noggin turn into ideas transcribed into letters in blue ink of words on pages of paper bound up as your container. The process feels sacred and mystical, like a chrysalis between a caterpillar transforming into a beautiful butterfly.
Designing My Life
Because of you, my life has been designed in a way I could’ve never done alone. You’ve supported me in becoming self-aware enough to create a life that I love living.
In 2020, I wrote about “the day in the life” I dreamed about. I would enjoy waking up to the sun. I’d smile with excitement ready to get vertical to start my day. I would feel closer to nature and be within walking distance of open water. I’d have a community that I could play with, converse about ideas that matter, and who made me feel understood. It was only in the face of lacking what I wanted that I could instead stir up true desires.
The Power of Daily Rituals
Writing with you has been a ritual similar to that of Christians praying each morning and night. I have a devoted practice to you, my journal. I show up and share with you each day: what I’m grateful for, what made my day great, how I felt, what I learned, and what I noticed.
You’ve helped me notice and unlearn the bully in my brain who sometimes calls me a slacker for resting or for beating myself up for not finishing personal projects.
You help to slow me down in life and put attention on the rich experiences that make up each of my moments. Each day I sit with you, I feel closer to myself. We get to press pause on the rest of life going by to notice the present, the past of yesterday, or the future of our dreams. I’ve become intimate in ways that I never knew I could be. The sugar that coats my reality dissolves, and I’m left with radical honesty about my desires and the facts and feelings of my life.
Showing up each day on the page with you is an invitation to model raw vulnerability in the connections I create in my life, whether it be a list of worries going on inside about the uncertainty of my future, a big decision I need to make, or a draft of something I want to share more openly with the world in my weekly letters.
So, why have you been my constant companion for five years?
I want to make my future self proud, and you help me do that. You serve as a mirror, reflecting my observations, gratitude, intentions, tasks, feelings, fears, and dreams. I get to organize my thoughts, check in with myself, and feel less mumbly with my words when I speak. You are my personal sanctuary for introspection, allowing me to process internally before sharing externally if I choose. Our nightly ritual together of setting tomorrow’s intentions has built a foundation of trust and integrity, like the ever-sprawling branches of a banyan tree.
Journaling has been my method of pausing, a necessary breath that allows me to process, reflect, and express.
Thank you for being the daily practice in my life these past five years through which I explore my curiosity, embrace my humanity, and create a life full of intention and fulfillment.
With all the love and gratitude in my heart <3,
Jen the journaler
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I hope you enjoyed this letter! I’d love to know if you journal or what you’re most curious to learn about journaling in the comments or in response to this email. I am super jazzed about this practice that has made my life more beautiful.
~~~
Anywho,
Greetings, learn-it-alls from a rainy, cloudy, thundering Honolulu, Hawaii today,
I will still share the rest of my usual letter below as I test out this newer format where I put the writing I want to ensure you read most at the top. Let me know if you have any thoughts!
🎤 Recording
I found this video that I filmed five years ago today. Looking back on the journey is wild. I mention in it my new habit of journaling for 15 minutes a day. I had no idea back then what I was just beginning.
🎬 Watching
I recently watched Dune 2. I highly recommend it, and I’m going to watch it again.
My biggest takeaway was how the protagonist could prove his belonging and the truth of a prophecy through his ability to learn quickly and immerse himself into a foreign culture. It's wild that humans can transform like that through learning. This story makes me want to throw myself off the deep end into learning too.
I shared my full movie review on Letterboxd here.
🎧Listening
OK - Sugarshack Session by Nahko And Medicine For The People
Sure, it’s a seven-minute song. I love every 420 seconds of it.
Some days I am not OK,
And I'm finally OK with not being OK
Some days I'm a fuckin hot mess and I digress, I'm a work in progress!
Most days I'm just tryna hold space
But there's so much pain, it's just so overwhelming!
These days I focus on myself and my mental health
That's about all I can handle
Yeah, yeah, yeah,
That's about all I can handle
🔍Word to define
Journal (n.)
a daily record of news and events of a personal nature; a diary; especially used to express one’s thoughts: while abroad he had kept a journal.
Nautical a logbook
(the Journals) a record of the daily proceedings in the British Houses of Parliament
(in bookkeeping) a daily record of business transactions with a statement of the accounts to which each is to be debited and credited.
Etymology
mid-14c., "book of church services," from Anglo-French jurnal, from Old French jornel, "a day; time; a day's travel or work" (12c., Modern French journal), properly "that which takes place daily," noun use of adjective meaning "daily, of the day," from Late Latin diurnalis "daily," from Latin dies "day," from PIE root *dyeu- "to shine."
The meaning "book for inventories and daily accounts" is from late 15c. in English (14c. in French); that of "personal diary" is c. 1600, also from a sense developed in French. Meaning "daily publication" is from 1728. Classical Latin used diurnus for "of the day, by day," and also as a noun, "account-book, day-book."
Initial -d- in Latin usually remains in French, but according to Brachet, when it is followed by an -iu-, the -i- becomes consonantized as a -j- "and eventually ejects the d." He also cites jusque from de-usque. (source: etymonline)
🌟 Eleven Quotes to Inspire
"Writing is a form of prayer." –Franz Kafka
"Journal writing is a voyage to the interior." – May Sarton
"We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect." – Anaïs Nin
"Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year." – Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Paper is patient, but the first scribble on it may awaken a gigantic thought." – Leonardo da Vinci
“We cannot teach people anything. We can only help them discover it within themselves.” – Galileo Galilei
"I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train." – Oscar Wilde
"In the journal I do not just express myself more openly than I could to any person; I create myself." – Susan Sontag
"Keep on eye on what happens in a journal, for that is a little version of what happens in your mind. Notice the convolutions, the surprises, the sudden transformations that you didn’t reckon would happen." – Joan Didion
"The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts: therefore, guard accordingly, and take care that you entertain no notions unsuitable to virtue and reasonable nature." – Marcus Aurelius
“Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.” – Dr. Seuss (Theodore Seuss Geisel)
📸Photo of the Week
I will be getting more into hiking for the next couple of months, training for a backpacking trip. I’m stoked about the opportunity to be in these green, lush mountains. Muddy feet and all.
🙏Shoutouts
To all who helped me refine this piece including
and
I appreciate you reading this!
If ideas resonated, I’d love you to press the heart button, leave a comment, reply to this email, or reach me at vermetjl@gmail.com. If you forgot who I am, I welcome you to my online home.
Keep on learning 😁
Mahalo 🌺
Jen
PS - in case you missed last week, I shared 🥖 Breadcrumbs from March 🥖
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