There’s something so pure about thumbing through the pages of a fresh notebook; the beauty of drawing an intentional blank. I recently graduated from a book with loose binding to a copper-spiraled masterpiece with green stenciled palm trees on the cover. I had gone through another upheaval, the kind where the Universe makes no difference where you land, only that you don’t stick it where you were before. With that, the call to a new notebook was born. Moreso, the call to write a new thing came to the surface, screaming. Writing has always been my love language. It’s how I communicated infatuation and support to somebody’s wayward son. But I rarely used it for my own self reclamation - call it refusing to get high on your own supply, I guess. So how do you begin to rewrite yourself anew? Exactly what words announce a revival? Here’s how I’m learning to navigate the blank pages of my current life
1. Accept lines as boundaries
When I was a kid, I had horrible handwriting. I hated art class because that wasn’t my tea. It required staying inside the regulated lines and the way my penmanship - let alone my art skills - were set up... I couldn’t make it work. My teacher, seeing my issues, handed me one of those handwriting workbooks and told me to find my way through it. With it, she allowed me to decide where my letters began and ended. It gave me the freedom to draw my lines how I saw fit. I still have horrible handwriting, which I now view as my literal signature. But I’ve realized that no matter the size or thickness, the lines you choose to draw between yourself and the outside world are yours. No one has the express right or jurisdiction to tell you how and why to use them. Boundaries are one of the highest forms of self-love. Use them liberally when forming new friendships and relationships, and when navigating the old and familiar.
2. You will start and restart.
And that’s okay. The most intimidating thing about a new notebook is deciding what my first entry will be. Will it be a quote? A picture? Will my first page be the catch-all one that holds random ramblings, phone numbers and dried pen marks? The excitement of starting something can sometimes outweigh the act of actually starting. And when we do start, we can tend to second-guess our approach. We think, “Everything hangs on this first move. All that comes after this will build from this foundation.” That is intimidating. Give yourself some grace with this reassurance: you’re going to restart over and over again. And that’s okay. Evolution is restarting. Erasing is restarting. Deciding that life how it’s been will no longer suffice is restarting. New foundations are built where the old is torn down. Some will try to make you feel a way for seemingly never sticking to something - hitting the proverbial reset button whenever life gets hard. That’s not at all what you’re doing. Instead, you’re choosing to take the lessons learned and begin again where you stand. In your power, with your wisdom. And that is okay.
3. It ain’t gotta be linear.
Nothing on this plane happens in a smooth, straight line. My current notebook jumps from rituals to recipes to prayers to checklists. There are days I forget to write coupled by days I don’t want to. The societal expectation that all is supposed to flow a certain way causes many of us to give up when the line dips lower than we desire. Here’s the real: the linear process only works in mathematical equations and even in those spaces, there’s room for nuance. Give yourself room to be outside the lines, behind the 8 ball, all over the place. Having it all together is old hat.
The next time you’re drawing an internal blank, stand in front of a bevy of notebooks. Try to possess that feeling of being fresh again, a blank slate waiting to be christened with words or art. Instead of allowing the outside world to dictate what you will say, take your pen and write out who you are on your own slate. Set your intentions, determine your boundaries, be as freestyle as you desire to be. This is how you begin again, filling up your own pages.
