One Line A Day

I've been striving to write in my little memory journal every day since the beginning of this year, even if its a few words or lines about how I'm doing, and often I'll add something about the weather as well, because its such a big deal for me, as I'm still slowly adjusting to the cold winters we get here in England. Yes our winters aren't as cold as other parts of the world, but for someone who grew up in Uganda, anything below 15ºC is considered cold, but more on that in another post. 

There's things I've been experiencing and hearing about that I want to write about. Its one of the reasons I love working in a bar. Work is interesting because of the verity of different people that pass through, most travel through because they're going on holiday or have been on holiday, whilst a large percentage work tend to stay because they're aware from because their work takes them away from work. Its truly fascinating to talk to them about their travels. I've come across some truly lovely people, but for their safes I won't write about them on here. It always gives me something to write in my journal about, thought I often struggle finding time to sit down and write the long posts about my life at Travelodge, even though I do enjoy my job greatly. My journal (my Beauty and the Beast Moleskine) is full of sadly short entries, often written before my shift, or when I get home and I'm too exhausted to write anything beyond "I'm alive, I'll write a long post soon".

So because I've been struggling finding time to sit and write in my Moleskine journal I decided I need using another Memory Book. It is my third one, and hopefully the first one I'll complete, given its a habit that I need to start now and carry on until the end of 2023. The first one I got wet and covered in mud when I loved over to England, then the second one I didn't even have a digital copy on my phone that I could use to copy into the book when I had time off. This is something I'm doing now. Every evening my phone will send me a reminder at 11:40 at night (often when I'm on the bus home) asking me if I want to write anything, I almost always do, because I struggle quite a bit with reading on my kindle if I'm on the bus at night (for some strange reason). Its often just a quick note on how my date went and how I'm feeling. Often I'll mention the weather as well, because its been so cold recently (hovering just above freezing!). Then when I have a day off, I'll sit down and copy the entries on my phone over into my one-line-a-day notebook (by Chronicle Books, based in San Fransisco, California, USA). The photo is of my beautiful new memory book. Click here if you're interested in looking at buying the above memory book. I should point out, Chronicle Books do sell different types of One Line A Day books, so if you're interested in buying one, and don't want the same one as me, you can flick through different types of One-Line-A-Day books on sale. I would strongly recommend doing it as its a lovely keepsake to have.

Once you get into the grove of writing, even a few lines a day, you'll find that it does get easier and easier to do. Given the amount of change I've gone through over the last two years, writing is one of the most stable factors in my life (thankfully Andy and God are the biggest certainties I have). It's amazing to be able to spend a few moments with myself every evening to look back on the day and think about how the day went. It can get difficult to condense the busier days into a few lines, but its a challenge I greatly enjoy doing. The bigger challenge is finding out what to write when I haven't done anything all day (except stay home and do nothing but watch documentaries on YouTube). It gives me a chance to thank God for the day He gave me and for the good things that happened and the lessons I learned from the not so good things that happened.

As I finish this entry, I want to take this opportunity to encourage you to think about starting something like this. It has helped me a lot and only God knows what it might do in helping you on your journey!