on writing.

I journal as often as I can, which isn't as often as I'd like. The picture above is my current stack of handwritten journals. My handwriting is tiny, so the 450 or so pages that I've written so far go a lot further than you'd think. I started journaling on September 19th, 2017 after a particularly rough year.

I've also got artwork, some photographs, tickets from concerts I've been to, and a bunch of other little memorable odds and ends wedged between those pages.

Impermanence of the written medium is always in the back of my mind while I write. My website is running on a Raspberry Pi in the living room and is, perhaps, the most ephemeral of the mediums I write on. The micro SD card that acts as its filesystem is more likely than not to fail in not many years. I must keep up with its updates, make sure that the SSL certificates are up to date, and pay the annual bill to keep the DNS service provider happy such that the URL keeps pointing to it.

Paper is not much longer lived than that. These journals, I hope, will stick around for the rest of my natural life. Once I'm gone, my heirs will likely toss them as my worldly goods are dispersed in an estate sale.

For me, the temporary nature of writing is a prompt. Its impermanence is what gives me the freedom to write. Perfection— choosing just the right words isn't necessary. I move my pen across the paper as a release for what's on my mind.

And oh! what a release it is. My journal holds my struggles, my gratitude, my life's story in the timbre of the moment.

Every now and then, I'll leaf through my earlier entries and remember those moments— how they felt, the people in my life, and minute details that I'd mostly forgotten. How happy I was! How worried I'd been!

And so: I press on and keep writing. It is one of my life's greatest joys to set my thoughts to paper. Though the seasons of my life keep changing, my writing is a constant beacon and reminder that this too shall pass.

Until next time, be well! :)