My Issue with Journals

I have issues with journals. Don't get me wrong. I want to be a journal writer. I love those gorgeous leather bound journals. I gaze at them longingly in the book store and think of all the wonderful things other people could write in them. But I am scared. Literally paralyzed by my own fears . . . I have huge, huge issues with writing in them myself. They are so pretty so I want everything I write to be perfect. I cannot handle mistakes. This is why I write in pencil (because it has an eraser) and in word processors. Just the thought of it not being perfect makes me want to never start. I call it avoidance perfectionism. If I don't ever actually DO it, then the concept of it can remain perfect in my mind.

Perfectly undone.

This probably sounds totally weird to most people. But I know there are others like me out there. It spills out into other parts of my life, it's not just journals, but they are a really prime example of it. Case in point. My husband gave me a gorgeous wood covered journal for my twenty-seventh birthday and I haven't written in it yet. I am thirty-two.

There's actually a book for people like me. A "journal" that gives you instructions about how to dirty it up. Do this with that page, crumple up and throw this page away, etc. The problem here is that I would literally get so caught up in following the instructions perfectly that it would completely defeat the purpose of the darn book.

Completely. Defeat.

I got another journal for my birthday this year. The cover is a gorgeous deep brown leather with beautiful flowers. There's a lovely inscription in it. It's from a woman here in our new town, the wife of my husband's coworker. She threw me a surprise birthday party. She has no idea about my avoidance perfectionism because I really do come off as a normal person. It is so pretty I don't want to unpretty it.

I've had it for almost two months.



Enough is enough.

I gave myself permission to unpretty this journal.

I got supplies. Including PENS.



I put pictures in the front. I didn't worry about the fact that my kids tore the picture of Maddie (so sad, I only have one untorn one left), I just tore the others to match.



I wrote in it.

On several pages.

I'm going to try to write in it more tomorrow. And more the next day. I might skip a day . . . I don't know. The point is I can skip and still come back to it. I can jump around. It doesn't have to be orderly or perfect. It just has to be used. This journal was made to be written in.

And once I've filled this one up, I'll start on my wooden journal.

I refuse to maintain a false perfection by just avoiding. I have to embrace the imperfection.