A couple of years before my best friend A passed away, we were in the habit of sending each other care packages.
Books, birthday presents, pins, patches, whatever we thought the other might enjoy.
Sometimes we’d also send random snail mail letters, just for the fun of it.
I say random, because we talked online all day anyway!
One of those packages contained this journal, from Flame Tree Publishing. She knew I enjoyed writing by hand and she decided to pass it along to me, claiming she had no use for it.
It has a pleasant magnet closure so I honestly love just opening and closing the thing all the time. Plus the design is so unique. Very steampunk.
Since her passing, I kept trying to find ways to keep it going, having used the paper inside a long time ago. I could never bring myself to throw it away, or put it in storage. It always just sat on my bookshelf.
I decided to make it my daily planner recently. If there’s one thing to know about me it’s that I’ll repurpose everything I can, especially physical items.
I ripped out the remaining paper down to the spine, repurposed a freebie journal I got at a job fair, added plastic pockets I got in the dollar aisle at Target, and started sectioning things inside.
I made pages for my weekly and monthly days, my bill tracking, and my incoming package tracker. That’s all I want to track nowadays. Anything more is just noise but I’m not averse to adding more pages down the line.
Anyway I hope I can find another freebie journal to repurpose for it once I’ve lived in the other pages.
Above all I enjoy looking at it. Just having it as my daily planner keeps her alive for me just a little bit more.
That’s all I wanted to say.
Hug your best friend for me, will you?
Smile like you mean it