it’s a serious question. i used to journal all the time when i was younger, and over the years i became disengaged, and eventually forgot how to use my brain to do this task that once came so naturally to me. 

i can’t say i’m not a writer, because i write all the time: emails (for work), lists (also for work), long texts to my friends apologizing for and over-explaining something i did (emotional work). i don’t see myself as a fiction writer like i once tried to be, because thinking of characters and all their complexities and developing a coherent plot is more work. so somehow, i have to find a way to journal again. i have to, because i have too much to say, all the time.

do i do it in my notes app, like i am right now? google docs? microsoft word? a different third-party writing app i should download on my phone? if i do, then it’s already typed, and then i can upload it somewhere and share it like ideas are meant to be. but then, where do i upload? wordpress? reddit? a website i create from the domain-up? when i was in middle school, i would write my journal on wattpad for whatever fandom community i was in at the time, and at it’s height the journal had 125k views. those views were mostly other middle schoolers who should have not been posting their life so explicitly on the internet. anyways, comment below if i uploaded this somewhere! 

i didn’t even consider journaling old school, like i do with my lists for work and errands. maybe i could write something on a grid or college-ruled paper, preferably spiral-bound. but then i would have the added internal pressure to make my journal look pretty with stickers and doodles, like i do with my daily agenda. even using my ipad is an option with that one note-taking app i bought for undergrad, because i thought that somehow would help with motivation to finish my degree (it didn’t, not because i didn’t finish my degree but because i stopped using the app). 

i’ve decided i need to create something, somehow, because i have so many thoughts in my brain and too much audacity to not share it with anyone who would listen. i could pay someone to listen, like a therapist, but that’s no fun, albeit necessary regardless. and i need people to listen, because then, what’s the point for writing this all down? for myself? if it were for myself, i might as well post it and try to think about how to make money off of it if people appreciate what i have to say. i would never know unless i try, so i must try. 

maybe i try and stick with it, and be consistent somehow. that is my problem, if you couldn’t tell, that i do not know where to even begin. and also, i don’t know how to be consistent. of course, it could be as simple as what i am doing now, which is writing in my notes app, which is was also my original form of journaling in middle school, which resulted in me somehow posting on wattpad without prior consent from my overbearing parents.

my other problem, is that i get easily embarrassed and think too much about cringe. i think that if i leave a digital footprint for all to see forever whenever, that i will regret posting in the first place in the future. which, is also crazy, because i did the same when i was in middle school without a second thought, and as an adult i do not regret posting in the first place at all. 

so i think i will journal here, in my notes app, the first place i gravitated to now and back then. and i will just go from there and see what happens next.