Hello... spring...

My brain is doing this bizarre thing where it was a lovely, unseasonably warm and spring-like 51 degrees outside at sunrise, and when we (my brain and I) stuck our nose out there and breathed it in, savoring that bouquet of coming rains and flowers, we thought “Ah, smells like quarantine. This is just like that magical March 2020 smell when flowers were blooming and I switched from carefully studying perspective to binge-playing Pocket Camp. Maybe I should go reinstall Pocket Camp and do that instead of paint this morning. Man, I miss quarantine. Real quarantine. Simpler times. Chocolate mousse cake. Watching the backyard come back to life while journaling. Cherry blossom petals floating past the deck from the neighbor’s yard. Fresh strawberries cut up into floral gin and tonics. Eggs over easy with savory pancakes every morning. Cute little decoration game where Isabelle would actually sit outside and read under a tree instead of working all the time. Nowhere to go and nowhere to be. Spring lasted forever that year, and it was magical.”

Except that whole associative process round-house kicked me straight in the face all at once in a split second and I’m still reeling, horrified to discover, and unwilling to believe that this pack of nostalgic propaganda is what the first smell of spring brings up for me now.

I recognize that I made a special effort to not be miserable that spring, but I never accounted for the lingering fondness I would accidentally set myself up for. My first impulse is to have an even better spring, to rewire "spring” as far away from “quarantine” as possible, preferably without as much gin, sweets, and underwhelming freemium gaming, but frankly I’m terrified of ever having a good time ever again because at this point who knows how it’ll turn out in retrospect.

Journal Snowflake 1, 2, 3: Happiness, Cover, Recs

Doing a thing I found!

I for one, would not in the least be upset if we got all the way into July and beyond still calling various prompt challenges "Snowflakes."

JS1: "What draws you to planners and/or journals? What about them makes you happy?"

I don't think it's the journal itself that really makes me happy, so much as my life when a journal is involved. My life feels more on track, and if it feels off-track and I've been forgetting to fully utilize the journal, I still feel like a lifeline exists out there somewhere, even if I'm too executive dysfunction at the moment to grab it. It's reassuring!

Occasionally, I do also really enjoy decorating or just writing neatly in my journal, though. (I say journal, but it's a planner. I occasionally journal in my planner, but I primarily plan.) When art is a job, it's very nice to find visually creative activities that I don't have to market or sell. I might still have objectives and disappointments with the quality of my decorations, trying to learn and improve over time - I absolutely cannot "just have fun" - but all of that is just for me. Baking, writing, and bass may be "creative" but they don't scratch that visual itch the way correctly placing a sticker or combining pen colors does.

But the most important way that a planner supports a happier life for me is by making it more obvious what is a real priority and what is just rattling round in my head. I don't "forget" that I need to paint, but I might underestimate how much time I need to dedicate to it if I don't get reminded of the week's goals, what next steps are reliant upon their completion, etc. Without writing it down and seeing it, playing Animal Crossing all day seems like an equally valid choice. I want to do it, right? I'll make time to paint later. It's only with the planner than I really start to conceptualize how limited time is, and how important the small daily tasks are to reaching bigger goals that I want a lot more than goofing around if only I take a moment to weigh those choices.

JS2: "Share a picture of your cover!"
( Images... )

JS3: "Recommend two or three planner/journal youtube channels or instagram feeds that you think people would enjoy."

Today's prompt hasn't posted officially yet, but I'm going to just check the box for the day and say that I don't typically enjoy hobby/how-to accounts... so here's a related recommendation instead!

In addition to all his thoughts and pep talks on art and happiness, Struthless occasionally offers ideas for what to journal about for motivational and mental health reasons so that might be worth checking out if you're feeling trapped in a dead end.