Growing up, I was an avid journal writer. Through my teenage years and even into college, I wrote in my journal just about every night, with lots of details and great storytelling. Honestly, the storytelling was probably a little too detailed in middle school, when I fell madly in love with a different boy every week and wrote pages and pages about each one. Facepalm. Drivel or not, I wrote. Pages and pages, capturing the essence of all the things that made up my life.
I grew up, got married, started a family…and somehow my journal writing fell by the wayside. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to write. It just...fell out of importance somehow, buried beneath the weight of all the other millions of things I had to do. Months passed without writing a single word, then I’d write an epic catch-up entry, trying (and mostly failing) to remember details I'd long since forgotten.
Late in 2012 was the first time, I think, that I heard of the concept of a five year journal. The idea fascinated me. It seemed like an ideal solution for me, a stay at home mom to a rambunctious two year old, with another baby on the way. I wanted to consistently write in a journal but just couldn’t seem to remember to do it or to make it a priority. The traditional way I'd journaled in the past felt too overwhelming. Maybe writing just a little bit every day in a five year journal was the answer!
I looked online, found some journals I liked, and sent the ideas to my husband as Christmas approached. He’s a bit of an overachiever and rather than just order a journal from Amazon, he designed and bound a five year journal for me himself, then surprised me with it on Christmas morning.
I wrote my first entry on January 1, 2013. Bit by bit, day by day, my journal gradually filled up. After five years, my husband gifted me another handmade journal. Fast forward to today, May 31, 2022, and I’ve only missed a handful of days.
That’s over 3,000 days of writing a few lines every day.
Nearly ten years of writing down entries that range from the mundane...
“Today I went to Costco and the library. I’m super tired, the kids all woke up last night. Fingers crossed they sleep tonight.”
to the spectacular...
“Baby boy is HERE! Woke up with contractions at 8am, and he was born at 12:03pm. 9lbs, 3 oz and a full head of dark hair. Tired but happy.”
Years of little victories, big disappointments, happy milestones, hard times, contented times, and everything in between.
Writing just a handful of sentences every day changed my life. Let me teach you how a Gradual Journal will change your life, too.
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