5 Birth Months Who Should Start Journaling Before The Year Ends

You can remember every appointment you've had this year and still struggle to answer a much smaller question: How have you actually been? Somewhere between getting things done and telling everyone you're fine, whole parts of your year can go unspoken. If you recognize yourself in one of these five birth-month portraits, a journal could give those parts somewhere to go before the calendar turns again.

January

January, you have a suspiciously short memory when it comes to giving yourself credit. Ask what you accomplished this year and you'll mention the thing you haven't finished. Meanwhile, you handled the unexpected expense, learned something that used to intimidate you, and kept showing up during a month you would quite happily never repeat. Before you start deciding what next year's version of you needs to improve, write about what this version has already done. Include the ordinary things. Especially the ordinary things. A few honest pages might remind you how much effort sits behind the life you've been calling “nothing special.” You deserve to remember yourself as someone who tried, even on the days there was very little to show for it.

March

There's a wish you keep dismissing before anyone else gets the chance. Maybe you want to take a class where you know absolutely nobody, make something with your hands, or live somewhere you can walk to the water. March, your imagination gets so much more generous when you're dreaming on behalf of someone you love. You can see their possibilities immediately. Your own come with a list of reasons to wait.

Give that wish a page before you give it another year of “someday.” Describe the part that draws you in. Is it the pleasure of being a beginner? Having an afternoon that belongs to you? You don't need to turn the answer into a five-year plan. For now, let yourself enjoy wanting something enough to write it down.

July

Write down the ridiculous thing someone said at dinner. The song you played on the drive home. The way an ordinary afternoon felt before you knew it would become something you missed. July, you notice the little details that make a life feel like yours, and a journal is a lovely place to keep them. As the year moves toward its ending, you may find yourself wanting to hold certain people or routines exactly as they were. Putting a memory into words gives you something to revisit while life keeps changing. You can love the old apartment and feel happy in the new one. You can miss a friendship's everyday closeness and still enjoy hearing how well that person is doing somewhere else. Save a little of what you loved, including how it felt to be you inside it.

October

“I know they didn't mean it that way.” October, you can get halfway through defending someone before you've admitted that your feelings were hurt. Your instinct to understand people is beautiful. It also makes for a very crowded inner conversation, with everybody getting a turn except you. Try writing the version of a moment you would usually edit before telling a friend. Were you disappointed? Annoyed? Secretly relieved when the plans fell through? A private page can hold an opinion you haven't made gracious yet. You can reconsider it tomorrow. Before the year fills with more invitations, favors, and decisions made together, get a little better acquainted with your first, honest response. It deserves to be heard by you.

December

December, people love the way you can rescue a disastrous evening with one good joke. You can turn a missed opportunity into a story everyone enjoys hearing. But sometimes you get so good at telling the funny version that nobody knows how badly you wanted things to work out. Maybe you've barely let yourself know, either.

Start your journal there, with the part you tend to hurry past. What were you looking forward to? What do you wish someone had understood? The entry can end while you're still disappointed. You can close the notebook, make yourself something good to eat, and leave the lesson for another day. Before you carry your hopeful heart into another year, give it somewhere to admit that this one asked a lot of it.