When something doesn’t feel like it serves your mental health anymore, it’s time to quit it. Right? When I was teenager and well into my twenties, I carried coins in my pocket. There was no intention of buying anything with them. And besides, snack and soda machines all cost more than a few measly coins anyway. I carried them because the textures brought me to a state of calm whenever the anxiety crept up on me. Feeling the ridges of a quarter or a dime, and the smoothness of a penny or a nickel was meditative. 

I wish I could say I remember the last time I carried coins purposefully. My pockets remain empty these days save for a pen or my earbud case. Sometimes I do carry a fidget cube; although, more times than not that fidget cube is in my hand as I run my thumb over the various doodads and textures it offers. 

In 2018, I decided to start using Ryder Carroll’s bullet journal method to feel more in control of my thoughts, my life, and my tasks. I went all out with it, opting to buy the official bullet journal by LEUCHTTRUM1917 and graduating to the 2nd edition a few years later. (Hot take: the original version was miles better than the 2nd edition, and, if it hadn’t cost more, I would have stuck with that version.) And you know that nothing LEUCHTTRUM1917 makes is cheap, but it’s well worth it.  

Continue reading “On Leaving Bullet Journal” →