I've been journaling for almost three years now. My initial goal was to journal every day and include pictures creating a neat and well-organized memoir for myself, but that didn't happen. I'm not a very organized person and journaling, more than an organized project, became a sort of outlet for any sadness, stress, and any sense of emotion that I had and needed to get out.

Journaling is a perfect outlet because it provides a way to have a deep meaningful conversation with yourself, the only person who could ever truly understand just everything you want to say. When you journal, it's all about you-and you're the only person who will ever get to read it so there's no need for a filter or censoring. You don't have to worry about being judged or offending someone, you can just put it all out there and let that shit go. Often times when I journal, I find a huge sense of peace and relief afterwards. I do it most often when there is something bothering me, or at a time when I'm feeling stressed, worried, or sad and I most need someone to talk to.

I started journaling when I was studying abroad in Spain for my senior year of high school. While studying abroad has been one of the most valuable and amazing experiences of my life, it comes with a lot of challenges and for me, journaling became my way to cope with those challenges. The first couple of months that I was studying abroad were a blast, it was fun being the new American exchange student that everyone wanted to get to know, but after that initial burst of excitement, things started to get old and I was one of those things.

People were no longer curious about who I was, instead, they became more concerned with their past friend groups that they've had since primary school. Being the new person, I bounced around from group to group, not fully integrated into any of them creating a sense of loneliness and isolation. I also had a poor ability to speak Spanish and while most of my friends could speak in English with me, it was hard to follow along when I was hanging out in groups or trying to keep up in school. At this point the days were also getting shorter, the weather was getting colder, and the holidays were coming up which I usually spent sitting around a Christmas tree in a dimly lit room watching the snow fall outside with my family. I missed it more and more every time that I saw a picture of them recreating that scene without me. This was when I bought my first journal.

As I shared earlier, my initial idea for my journal was to create a beautiful and well-organized book as a memoir to my time studying abroad as well as bits and pieces of my favorite memories growing up, but it didn't turn out like that. Instead, my journal is a mess of ideas, stories, letters, complaints, drawings, and much, much more. Journaling became a time for me to ignore everyone and everything else in the world and just focus on myself and what I needed while I worked on sorting out all the little things flying around my mind.

I love everything about my messy little journal, what I love most about it though is that it's just for me. In its creation, I never had to worry when something didn't turn out as I intended. I knew the story behind it and how it came to be what it was, and I loved it so much more for that.

Sometimes I journal three times a day, and sometimes I don't journal for months. I wish I was able to stick to a perfect routine of journaling before bed every night or when I wake up in the mornings, but it doesn't work for me that way and that's okay. I journal late at night when something is keeping me from sleeping and I just need to get it out. I journal when I am stressed out or angry and thoughts and emotions are racing around my head and I just need to organize them on a little sheet of paper.

In all of these moments, journaling has been a way for me to create peace in my mind and to let go of all the stupid stuff holding me down, and it also provided a way for me to become my own best friend to talk to and to listen to my own problems and ideas. I truly believe this practice of journaling for the past couple of years has helped me to stay true to myself and be happy with the life I have and has provided a way for me to reflect on all the different aspects of my life to view it from an outside perspective and decide who I really want to be.