Goal Setter! Woman Buys 40 Dollar Faux Leather Journal Just for It to Sit on Her Desk

Right next to her watercolor brush set and unread copy of Infinite Jest.

January 10, 2021

She was tired of the same, old routine. Everyday was spent consuming content on either her small screen (phone) or big screen (computer), occasionally watching both at the same time (headache). Her therapist told her back in June to try to take on a new hobby, something that could get the pleasure chemicals she was so desperately lacking circulating through her brain. She tried so many things, each one a more feeble attempt than the last. But this was 2021 – a fresh start! Buying this beautiful gold-tinted suede ‘Big Ideas’ journal was different.

In June it was the checkered jump rope. 30 jumps a day, she told herself, increasing by 10 every other day. She bought the rope from Target on a Monday, and by Friday the jump rope was collecting dust in her garage. Which is fine, because she was more of a biker anyway, so that following week she bought a bike on sale at Home Depot. Well, outside Home Depot, a man was selling his used bike for 50 bucks. And hey, that lasted two weeks!

The cycle continued. In July, she bought an air fryer. After that, a baby blue tea set from Bed, Bath, and Beyond. Then the whole Lord of the Ring trilogy. A neopixel lightsaber. A sexdoll (for company!). She stopped inviting her boyfriend over, as he was a solutions guy, and she didn’t know how to explain what compelled her to under-utilize her purchases. Was it a disease? She bought a life alert necklace.

By September she was fortunate enough to sign onto a new job, and so naturally she bought herself a new professional wardrobe. The problem? She was working from home. Her new steady income allowed her to make some bigger purchases. But all her energy was spent completing her silly little tasks atop her work computer. The weather grew colder. She bought two down jackets.

In December she had all but given up. And anyway, the new year was right around the corner. She bought a hot chocolate maker to celebrate and used it once. But this was her chance to wipe the slate clean. On her way back from one of her weekly Target binges, she passed a cute mom and pop boutique selling writing supplies. In the window was a brown, leather-bound journal. It was whispering to her, calling her to pick it up. Her precious.

Forty-four dollars and some change for tax, but the important things were priceless. She had it all mapped out; she would use a few pages to track workouts, other pages to record which books she was reading and how she rated them, and to detail her sleep and dreams. It would be her everything, everyday journal.

New Years Eve came and she drank way too much bubble moscato and spent New Years Day watching Survivor reruns and burping. She would start tomorrow!