Month: May 2019

creativity

When I was young, I was obsessed with stickers. I put them on every surface of my room. My desk, drawers, walls were all covered with hearts, stars, and random stickers of Tweety.

As an adult now, I’m still sticker obsessed. In fact, I love anything and everything that has to do with stationery. Pens, pencils, markers, brush pens, stickers, notebooks, notepads, etc. Everything! All of these things were a big part of my childhood that carried on through my adult life.

The reason I love stationery is that it brings a sense of comfort and happiness in my life.  I can sit down and just write down all my thoughts in my bullet journal, all my stories in my notebooks, draw in the notepads, jot down my to-do lists in my planners. I can select from a variety of colors, from red to mustard to teal. I can pick whether I wanted to use a 0.5 pencil, a brush pen, or a marker. I can choose from stacks and stacks of sticker of quotes, hearts, unicorns, cats, anything! Everything was up to me. There was no right or wrong. I could create anything I wanted.

A few years ago, I found a brand called the Happy Planner. They had planners, stickers, and everything I loved. I was instantly sucked into the planning community. For a while, I kept up with my planning, but once I graduated college I lost touch with it. That is when my anxiety and depression began settling in and soon all the things I used to love became meaningless to me. However, the Happy Planner always tempted me. I would see the stickers that the Happy Planner had and I could feel that small spark of happiness in me.

One day, I decided to listen to it.

It was the best choice I have made. The Happy Planner has helped me deal with my anxiety in more ways than one. I carry my planner with me along with my bullet journal and other notebooks. It is a part of my everyday life and it helps me cope.

I love writing and I love planning. Together, they are two of my greatest happiness. It’s a part of my journey because it is one of the creative outlets I have found that has helped bring happiness back into my life.

I hope to share this aspect with everyone.

 

rain

There is something soothing about stepping outside when the rain has stopped. There is a feeling of freshness, but also a sense of expectancy. You can feel the peace in the interlude. You don’t know what’s coming next, but you know something is coming. If you wait a little bit longer, you can almost feel the mist slowly touching your skin.

I used to step out onto the rain and look up at the sky waiting to see the raindrop down hard on my face. That’s how my life felt for a long time. An endless pouring rain that I felt like I was drowning in.

I stopped seeing the rain as an endless storm and instead focused on the cleansing fresh start it could provide.

A few months ago I heard a song written and sung by RM (a Korean artist part of BTS). In the song, there is a lyric that states, “I feel so lonely when I’m with me.” This one line resonated so deeply because I’ve always felt like a lone soul stuck wandering in an endless storm of pain and despair.

The song provided a sense of comfort that for so long I was looking for. His words reminded me that the most important thing was to learn to love myself. These last few weeks have really tested me and I almost felt like I could not keep going. But I reminded myself that I would not drown, I would not live in the storm. I would keep going.

And here I am.