Taking plastic wrap off a new journal, is one of my favorite things to do. You know the kind of cellophane film that gets charged with static electricity when you tear it off and it clings to your skin without glue. Inhaling new paper smell as I expose the cream colored surface with college ruled lines.

Opening a new journal is kind of like a sacred ritual for me. Especially in the winter months. Early mornings when the house is quiet. Still dark, except for the colorful glow of lights from the Christmas tree spilling their  reflection on the smooth simulated woodgrain floor. This is when I have the most time for my heart to be still and think on the past before wandering thoughts venture to where I’m headed and what purpose I want to fulfill in my life.

I dream of unloading conversations that are well rehearsed in my head. Possessing hopes of telling a story with perfectly picked words, like plucking a ripe piece of fruit from a tree that will bring healing and nutrition to my soul and maybe to someone else who reads them.

A brand new journal is kind of like the first week of January. The start of something new, full of hope and potential.

Maybe it’s because they both represent a fresh start. Perhaps that is when I give myself permission to have visions what could be.

A blank canvas awaits ink strokes and characters, detailed descriptions, and feelings. Words that will paint pictures into the imagination of others. Creating new worlds into existence. I imagine telling a story they way I want to remember it, or more importantly, the way I want others to hear it.

Although, it seems as once I write or draw in the virgin journal, it loses its mysterious wonder. Those first few words I write are like sending it down a path into the life and purpose it will lead.

It might become a book of lists, or it may be filled with ideas of business ventures I want to pursue. It could just be a daily to do list, which isn’t exciting, but never a bad thing. I take great satisfaction in checking off items such a list. But each time I pierce the cellophane and crack open the spine of the book, I have hopes for so much more.

The basket under my desk and the bottom shelf in my bedroom contain the years of said journals from my past. Filled with confessions, tales, and half told stories that I feel I never quite convey exactly what I wanted to say. Doodles and pictures sometimes illustrate part of what I’m thinking. Different colors of my favorite brand uniball fine point rollerball ink scribbled throughout the pages. Resembling much like hieroglyphics, even though I wrote them, I probably could not crack the code of whatever I was meaning to say.

Other times I laugh as I flip through the pages and see when I wrote about an idea that first came to me. A thought for a new website, business, blog or inspirational photoshoot. The inception of ideas. Maybe the practical shopping list I had for a party. The movie screen of my mind transports me to that event. And I see the faces that were with me that day. Celebrating life or meeting a friend for the first time. The next page reveals a list of things I’m thankful for. Stating heartfelt gratitude for the blessings in my life. Sprinkled in between there are dozens of prayers as I spilled my heart out to my Creator.

I’m off to Amazon to pick out my new journals for the coming months continuing in my life-long ritual of unloading my brain and heart on to paper.

Do you have personal life rituals that you perform daily, weekly, yearly? Those routines that guide you through the years and help keep you grounded?