Day 282: Starting A New Journal

Starting a new journal is the best feeling in the world. So many endless possibilities and untold stories. A new journal is always a new start and the opportunity to create a life worth living. It's a reminder that every day is important and eventually your days will have been lived.

Because I am starting a new journal, I am also closing an old one. I am putting a close to pages of memories. It's like finishing a book in the series you're reading, it is both wonderful to start the next book, but so hard to say goodbye to the last one. In my case, that's six months of memories that have taken place during the weirdest year ever that I am putting a close to.

It's hard saying goodbye, closing a chapter and moving on to the next. It really just feels way too final, like part of my life is over because there are no more pages to hold the story. I started writing in a journal years ago, when I was very young, and because of that I have closed seventeen journals. It's both amazing and sad.

But that is how it works in life and in journals. Our lives are filled with chapters, pages, and volumes of stories. Sometimes they line up with the beginning and ending of a journal, other times, they mingle in the pages creating their own beginnings and endings within the pages. We never know when a end will come until it does.

The wonderful part about life is that after every ending there will always be a beginning. Every sunset is followed by a sunrise, we must trust in that. And so I start another volume of my story. July 1st brought about the close of an old journal and the start of a new one without a single word written on it's clean pages.

I have started not only a new chapter, but a new book and it seems like a fitting place to start. Life's endings and beginnings have somehow coincided with this new journal. It's ended with the end of a situation that does not have any closure and a small teaser for what is to come. This journal was long overdue, but it was the perfect moment to begin.

New and fresh pages without a blemish or ink stain wait for me. It does not hold anything but paper and anticipation. Soon it will be filled with memories of laughs and sobs, angry words and moments of pure joy. It will record the best and the worst equally and will preserve it for all of time.

That is the power of a journal and of a life being lived. I look forward to the memories I will make there on the new pages.

Until Next Time,
Lillian Merritt