Why Your Next Journal Should Be Gloriously Weird

Can we talk about the journal graveyard?

You know what I mean.

That shelf, that drawer, that nightstand corner where perfectly good journals go to be completely ignored.

You bought them with the best intentions - you were going to write in them every morning, you were going to become a person who has their thoughts organized - and then...life happened.

Or nothing happened.

And the journal just sat there, blank and a little accusatory.

I have bought so many journals.

So many sensible, pretty, perfectly-fine journals.

And I have abandoned almost all of them.

For years I thought this was a me problem.

A discipline problem.

A "I'm just not a journal person" problem.

Turns out, I think I was just buying the wrong journals.

There's Something About Weird Journals

I'm talking about the journals that make you stop scrolling.

The ones with covers that are a little funky, a little unexpected - mushrooms, vintage illustrations, something bizarre and wonderful that has no business being on a journal but somehow works.

The ones that make you think "who is this for?" and then immediately realize it's for you.

Here's what I've noticed: a weird journal doesn't disappear into the background of your life.

A plain beige journal absolutely will.

But the strange one - the one that makes you smile every time you see it - keeps quietly catching your eye.

And that gentle little reminder that it exists?

That's actually most of the battle.

There's also something freeing about a journal that doesn't take itself too seriously.

It gives you permission to do the same.

Your handwriting can be chaotic.

Your entry can be three sentences about how tired you are.

It doesn't matter, because your journal is already out here being its wonderful weird self, and it's not judging you at all.

Do you have a journal graveyard situation going on, or have you cracked the code?

Why Different Actually Helps You Show Up

I think when we choose something intentional for ourselves - something that caught our eye, something that felt like us - we're quietly more committed to it.

Not in a guilt-trip way.

In a "I chose this because it matters to me" way.

That's a completely different energy than buying the safe, sensible option because it seemed like the responsible choice.

When your journal is already breaking the mold just by existing, it gives you space to break your own rules too.

You don't have to write perfectly formed thoughts.

You don't have to be profound.

You can just be human and messy and real, because your journal already is.

I've also noticed that choosing something I actually love shifts the whole feeling of journaling from task to treat.

Small shift, enormous difference.

The Journals I Needed

Okay, here's where I get a little personal - because I think it matters for what I'm about to share.

I've been creating journals, and they came from the same place: I needed them and they didn't exist yet.

The Little Café of Courage Journal was honestly a work of love and a little bit of tough love directed at myself.

I had been sitting on decisions - big ones, small ones - for way too long.

Playing it safe.

Avoiding the discomfort of putting myself out there.

I needed something that would give me a gentle but firm kick in the pants to stop delaying, start trying, and get comfortable with hearing no.

So I built it.

Designed it for the woman who knows she needs to start going for things but keeps finding reasons to wait.

Between Seasons - The Liminal Space Journal came from a completely different place - a harder one.

I was living in the fog.

You know that in-between space where you're not who you were but you're not yet who you're becoming?

Where everything feels uncertain and you can't see the path forward clearly?

That was me, and I was struggling. I needed a helping hand through it.

Something that would sit with me in the uncertainty instead of rushing me out of it.

So I made that too - through a lot of tears, honestly - because I wished someone had handed it to me when I needed it most.

Both of these journals exist because I was a woman who needed them and had to create them myself.

And I think that's exactly why they work - they're not designed from the outside looking in.

They're designed from the messy, beautiful, complicated inside.

Give Yourself Permission to Choose the Journal That Feels Like You

Here's the thing about journals - and really about most things we choose for ourselves.

We spend so much time picking the sensible option.

The universally acceptable one.

The one that won't raise any eyebrows.

But your journal is one of the few places in your life that is entirely, completely, just for you.

Nobody else needs to understand it.

Nobody else needs to approve it.

So if you've been eyeing the weird one - get the weird one.

And if you've been feeling stuck in indecision and avoidance, or lost in a season of uncertainty and fog, maybe one of the journals I poured my whole heart into is waiting for you too.

The best journals aren't the pristine ones that stay perfect on the shelf.

They're the ones that get loved - pages bent, covers worn, spines cracked from being opened again and again because they held something real.

You deserve a journal that feels like a friend.

Which journal era are you in right now - the rejection and risk-taking one, or the foggy in-between one?

I'd love to know where you're at.