On Journaling

by Kylee Walton

I’ve been journaling for a few years, but I haven’t been keeping up with it as well as I used to be. My mom bought me a journal at the start of my junior year of high school. It had around 160 pages, but I filled only around 25 of them. I remember the first page being about how excited I was to write in the journal and that I went to the grocery store with my mom that day too. By the last entry of that journal, I was lamenting about a breakup (which was the topic of the last 10 journal entries). My first journal seared this notion into my mind: you write in a journal if you’re seriously distraught about something. You only journal about the horrible things you are thinking and feeling.

I left that journal at home when I moved to college. With my formed idea of journaling in my brain, I kept a brown hardcover journal. I rarely wrote in this one and mostly used it for creative work and scrapbooking. Then I decided that I wanted to start handwriting my creative writing consistently, so I purchased a new journal—a black softcover Moleskin—and began to do just that. This lasted for maybe a month. 

Creating a strict regiment of how I use my journal led me to rarely using the journal. Soon after I noticed this, it morphed into a catch all journal—I dumped whatever my heart desired in there. I started the journal in September of 2024 and finished it earlier this month, September of 2025. Over the summer, I wrote in my journal almost every day. My journal included my musings on various topics, what I did day to day, lists, various sprinkles of creative writing, doodles, polaroids of fun memories, and more. It feels strange to say that I’m proud of how the journal came out because I realized, as I was filling out the journal, that there shouldn’t be a goal with journaling. It’s not something to be proud of because it’s just something that one does to recount experiences. I’ve been attempting to develop my own philosophies about journaling. What does it mean to me? What do I believe it’s doing to assist my living experience? 

I’m not proud of my journal because it’s an extension of me. That’s not to say that I’m not proud of myself, or that I’m not proud of what I wrote in it. It feels strange to me to put a label of success on something that is so personal to me—there should be no such thing as pride or failure when it comes to a journal. I believe that it should be one of those things that stands on its own with nothing attached to it, except for the person who writes in it.

Viewing it in this way has allowed me to connect with the activity of journaling more. Journaling is private. There’s no bias surrounding it. I can bend it to my own will. It’s a small way I can keep control of my life and my thoughts.

I once saw this photo online of someone’s collection of journals over three years, and each one was labeled with the start and end date of the journal. It really struck me and I think about it every time I journal. I think about my own little stack of journals three years from now. There’s something really beautiful about having a stack of journals from years of writing, weathered from age and travels, containing proof of a life that’s been lived. 

I want that beauty for myself.