I’m sure I’ve confessed my love of journals here. Utilitarian canvas-covered sketchbooks and beautifully embossed covers with sewn-in creamy pages make me want to write brilliant things in them.

Then I get clammy hands and a terrible case of writer’s anxiety when I fear I won’t be brilliant…just…mediocre, and I don’t want to ruin the beautiful pristine pages with my ramblings. Because of this silly notion, I’ve amassed a stack of lovely (and some utilitarian) journals, sitting pretty and empty on my book shelf, longing to fulfill their purpose and house all kinds of thoughts.

Big thoughts. Small thoughts. Complicated and incomplete thoughts. Stream of consciousness and careful thoughts.

And yes, every once in a while, maybe something brilliant.

Something changed a couple of years ago and I started writing in these beautiful books. I didn’t think it would happen, but I’ve filled them all. I just opened the last empty one and filled the first page. Heaven.