Glow by Lady E

Come sit with me for a while. I have my journal open, and tonight I’ve been thinking about something I suspect I do more often than I realize. I turn healing into another thing I need to accomplish. I want to know when I’ll be over something. When I’ll stop thinking about it. When something that hurt will finally stop hurting. When I’ll feel like myself again. And somewhere along the way, healing quietly becomes another deadline. Another invisible date on a calendar. Another thing I can somehow be late for. But maybe healing doesn’t work particularly well under project management. Maybe there are things I will understand quickly and things I’ll have to revisit again and again. Maybe I’ll feel completely fine one day and unexpectedly tender the next. That doesn’t mean I’ve gone backwards. It means I’m still moving through it. I remember one day, many years ago, when I had fibromyalgia. I lived in constant pain. I just couldn’t get a good day. And then one day, in the office...

  I have a lot of stationery. (Remember that sack that arrived on Black Saturday?) Probably more than I need. Definitely more than I need. But I’ve stopped feeling guilty about it. Because somewhere between buying pretty pens, collecting stickers, and convincing myself that yes, I absolutely needed another tiny pad of paper, I realized something: I actually use them. Not all at once, of course. That would be chaos. Instead, I’ve started letting different pieces find their way into different pages. This Page, These Things This is one of my recent journal pages. For this spread, I used just three pens: a Zebra Sarasa Clip, a soft-colored marking pen from Daiso, and a Chosch Click Dot pen. I also used little grid paper pieces from a set of Daiso memo pads, along with a few stickers I had collected from KKV. Nothing particularly complicated. Nothing carefully coordinated beforehand. I simply chose what I felt like using and started putting things on the page. A little paper here. A sti...

  I’ve learned something about myself: organization and productivity are deeply connected. When my things are scattered, my thoughts tend to scatter with them. Before I can begin doing something, I have to find the right notebook. Then the right pen. Then the notes I wrote somewhere. Then perhaps the stickers I wanted to use. By the time I’ve assembled everything, the little spark that made me want to begin in the first place may already be wandering off somewhere else. So I started creating organizers for different parts of my life . I have a small one for my Glow and Eats notes. Another is for journaling. Another holds what I need for business and strategizing. Each one has its own notebooks and carefully chosen supplies. And something rather lovely happens when I take one out. I open it, and I begin. Everything I Need Is Already Here There’s very little negotiation required. If I’m working on Glow, I take out that organizer. If I want to journal, I reach for another. If it’s tim...