The first time I kept a journal was back when someone had bought me a Mickey Mouse diary. Back when girls called the records of their innermost thoughts a diary, and began each entry with “Dear Diary”. I was around middle-school aged and it was the type of diary that had a lock and key to open it. I didn’t know it at the time but opening that diary for the first time and seeing the blank pages within, waiting to be filled with my own thoughts, gave me a thrill before I even knew writing was something I would come to enjoy as I got older.

I’ve obviously since graduated from Mickey Mouse diaries, and the kind of words I put in journals now are a lot more thoughtful and meaningful than, “Matt said something funny today.” But what hadn’t stopped from the first time I was gifted that diary all those years ago was my love of collecting beautiful new journals for writing.