Dusty old journals

I thought starting a blog would be easy somehow, but boy was I wrong.

It's every bit as hard as starting a new journal, sketchpad or even a notebook at the start of a new academic year. I swear I can practically see the clear pristine blank pages sizing me up and going, "Really? You?" They're just WAITING for me to mess up.

Which is maybe why we all have empty journals tucked away in the dark corners of our drawers and are easily forgotten about. The diaries with the pretty covers. The ones we bought enthusiastically, convinced that THIS was the one. The one you'd pour your heart into. The one you'd carry around, scribble and sketch in, paint on knowing that years from now it'd be a relic. It wouldn't matter to a lot of people, but it would to you. It'd be something you could measure yourself with, so you could see the reflection of the person you were and compare it to who you are now.

I really like some of the old sketchbooks I've kept. The drawing is all wonky and on every other two pages there are scribbles from when my then-a-toddler brother got his then-chubby hands on them. I don't have many old journals, but some of the relics that did make it through are stashed away in the very same drawers, in-between excess crafting paper and brand new journals, the ones I still haven't figured out yet.