Does My Journal Think I'm Cool?

Does My Journal Think I’m Cool?

Written by Norah Lesperance

Photographed by Emilie Dumas

I started journaling as soon as I developed both the fine motor skills to hold a crayon as a toddler and the ability to shakily write my ABCs just before kindergarten. I’m self-reflective and analytical to a fault, but after 15 years of putting my thoughts to paper, I somehow still don’t have journaling—something that’s (allegedly) an incredible and meditative tool—figured out.

After a multiyear hiatus, I tried to start journaling again last fall, but it spiraled into feeling inauthentic and performative. I was at Kasteel Well, and I thought it would be so cool to look back on more than just photos from my study abroad days. I wrote through my weekends in Bruges, Berlin, Paris, and Prague. And then I stopped. It felt fake. I wasn’t doing it for myself, but I couldn’t figure out who I was writing for. I’m not giving my journal to anyone. I’m not posting photos of it online. Who’s watching me but myself ?

Does my journal need to think I’m cool?

At five and six years old, I didn’t care. Journaling entailed filling my pink fuzzy notebook, complete with a pink feathered border and a bedazzled outline of a princess crown on the cover, with incoherent doodles, spelling practice, and two-sentence recaps of my best and worst days. I described things as “osm” (awesome) and explained stressful dentist visits with drawings of my teeth to match. I journaled freely then, uninfluenced by the eyes or thoughts of anyone else.

But, in 4th and 5th grade, my best friend and I shared journals. My journal (read: my friend) did need to think highly of me. Our composition notebooks were adorned with stickers and our names in cursive, and we traded back and forth each day, documenting nasty comments from the boys who judged my Pokémon card collection and the fallout of an embarrassing spelling bee. We wrote through ten of those classic composition books, if not more. It was just us and endless crisp, lined pages tackling the complex emotions of tweenagerhood.

While our years of journal swapping made for a cute story, it changed how I view this reflective practice for the worse. Journaling didn’t belong to me anymore. I’d gotten used to putting every emotion into writing to be seen by somebody else—and I don’t think I’ve ever broken that habit. I still open my notebook and step on to a stage, performing my soul-searching for an invisible audience.

By 8th grade, the pressure to romanticize introspection was in full force. Bullet journaling YouTubers like AmandaRachLee influenced me like no other. I collected the classic Leuchtturm1917 A5 notebook, washi tapes and sticker packs, and countless brush pens. I recreated every Pinterest spread, and my best work went straight to my Instagram story. Smudged lines and botched drawings—errors to be ashamed of—were kept secret. I wasn’t expressing myself through words, but the vulnerability of art bore the same weight. The aesthetic pressure never went away, and still, I wasn’t journaling entirely for myself.

I want to be a girl-who-journals so badly it hurts. I want to sit down at the Thinking Cup, whip out my brown canvas-covered notebook with a cute button closure, pull a pen from my leather jacket pocket, and write. I want to pour my soul into the off-white lined pages and make some profound statements about my 20s. I want a record of who I am, who I’ve been, and who I want to be. I want to reflect. I want to grow.

Except, like clockwork, I stop journaling shortly after I start. There’s nobody watching me, but I feel the pressure to meet invisible standards for how aesthetically pleasing or “deep” each entry should be. As much as I want to, I don’t journal anymore, at all. I write personal essays like this, which could be a form of journaling—ironically, one that’s published for anyone to read. Maybe journaling alone wasn’t meant for me, and putting my thoughts into the world is what will really help me grow.

Or maybe I’ll read this in a few years and think: Norah, what on earth were you talking about? Who were you performing for this time?

And, based on my track record with journaling, that would make complete sense