Nov. 25 was a typical Saturday for most, perhaps one was enjoying leftovers from Thanksgiving or enjoying the company of visiting family or friends. For me, I was reflecting on 365 days of journaling.

I looked back through this coffee-colored leather-bound notebook and saw my thoughts, emotions and experiences laid out before me, each entry telling its own tiny story but somehow coalescing into one larger narrative. This week, I’ll share what I have discovered from one year of journaling. My hope is that, after reading this, others may be motivated to embark on a similar journey or, if they are already journaling, continue doing so.

Change. I changed so much in one year. But it is too easy to let such progress (or lack thereof) slip my mind. My journal helps me to see how my mind has grown. From the highs and the lows, I can see myself getting stronger, more resilient and more insightful.

Beauty. My journal entries became more beautiful as I kept writing. I went from a formulaic, robotic approach. I ranked things on a scale and rated my days on a scale of 1 to 10. Now this is a perfectly sound approach to journaling, yet it’s dry and often fails to help us express our deepest emotions and master our minds. I saw my word choice improve, my vocabulary grow and even my handwriting improve. I saw my voice come to fruition through my pen.

Clarity. Scribbling thoughts, events, emotions or anything into my journal assisted me in seeing the bigger picture. This organization of my life helped me to view things from the proper perspective and keep moving forward. Moreover, I now cherish the relief that I know will come from a lengthy entry…by putting my mind onto these pages, I clear up space for what is yet to come. I am protecting my peace.

A lack of loneliness. I, like many others, have felt lonely at times. Yet, I treat those feelings with pen and paper. When I started to come to this realization, the words of Franz Kafka spoke to me and explained this feeling so beautifully. He said:

“‘Writing that springs from the surface of existence–when there is no other way and deeper wells have dried up–is nothing, and collapses the moment a truer emotion makes the surface shake. That is why one can never be alone enough when one writes, why there can never be enough silence around one when one writes, why even night is not night enough.”

Kafka is saying that humans can lose themselves in writing so effortlessly. We can never be alone when we write for we are with the truest, most honest version ourselves. We are deeply vulnerable and have a beautiful canvas to paint with our minds.

Furthermore, a sentence quickly morphs into a paragraph and a page becomes pages. We have so much to say but sometimes we need not share it with others. Some things are just for us.

I will always be able to look back on the past year thanks to this journal I purchased from Walmart and the Pilot G2s from CVS. These simple tools paid dividends. I am excited to look back on this article a year from now as I fill my next journal.