Rest Stop

On journaling and self-care.

By Sizz Tuna

July 7th, 2026

I’ve been on a journey of self-discovery lately. You could say. Tripped over some tributaries. No lakes in sight. Cartographer came down with dysentery. Yadda yadda. I have the distinct feeling that my brief period of rest here’ll end soon, and then things are gonna start feeling weirdddddd once I have to wade neck-deep back into life. So I might as well soak up all the rest I can while it lasts — I feel like I went nearly an entire year without ever really exhaling. Stress works wonders on one’s local topology.

You ever tried journaling before? Maybe you’re already all about it. That’s great! If not, I’d definitely recommend. All you really need is pen and paper. Anything else is pretty much flourish. There’s no one way to go about it — you can write paragraphs and paragraphs of personal musings, you can write a handful of bullet points about the quotidian events of the day, you can draw little doodles rather than or in addition to writing anything, etc. You can get philosophical, you can write about current events, you can obsess over media, you can write goals or predictions for the future, you can vent about something somebody said that annoyed you. You can do anything. Whatever you want. I’ve done everything listed at some point or another. Remember, your journal’s for you. Nobody else. It’s only really a productive practice if you use it the way you want to.

I’ve had a journal ever since fourth grade, when writing in one was a fairly regular in-class assignment. I just really enjoyed it, I guess. There’s a gap in the latter half of high school, but I eventually came back to it in a new form. It’s really interesting to have such a long record of this sort sitting there. Also really uncomfortable some of the time. But hey. We were all 14 at some point, right? All you can do at this point is treat your awkward adolescent self with sympathy. Promise you’ll figure it out at some point. (…I hope I’ll eventually be saying the same thing to my current self.)

Now, I write and draw a short (…okay, sometimes long) journal entry every single day. I know that’s intense for a lot of people, but I’ve found it really helpful lately (again, whatever works for you). It’s been great for a) grounding myself(?) through a daily practice b) remembering what the heck I did in any given week/month and c) recording my thoughts and feelings so that I can’t later easily forget or ignore them. I’m finding that that last point is especially important for me right now. I’ve been trying to figure out the consistencies of my inconsistencies and be more flexible about taking care of myself. I’ve personally found that if you consistently harm yourself (e.g. not getting enough sleep and eating crappily and replacing leisure with more forms of work and sitting metaphorically motionless in an isolating environment), there’s gonna be some part of you that becomes utterly miserable and knows your life needs to change. And will probably desperately be trying to get you to pay attention to it. Because you really should. So. Developing new codes of conduct that will hopefully pass the inevitably approaching trial by fire with flying colors. Right? …We’re gonna get there.

Posting my thoughts online usually feels weird and unnatural to me. Most things I need to process, I simply deal with in a private forum (i.e. a journal/sketchbook). Something that random people on the internet can’t access. Not that I don’t get the impulse, but every time it crops up, I find myself wondering why I ever want to shout into the void in the first place. If I want somebody to notice and shout back, shouldn’t I just… try to actually reach out to somebody I know? Say hi? Of course, it’s a lot more difficult to reach towards someone directly and specifically when you feel isolated, especially if you’re not sure even who you can reach out to. If you’re not sure you even have anyone you can. Still. I know sometimes life can feel like you’re Sisyphus pushing the rock up the hill. The truth, though not a cheerful answer, is that we don’t have any other choice. I think the trick is to try new things. Come up with new tactics. It’s easier to do once you start paying attention to yourself, once you start to examine how exactly you’ve been pushing that rock and why. It’s not impossible to find a new (less steep) path up that hill. Just sometimes difficult.

So, if I’m not much for posting things, then why in the world am I writing any of this? If I’m gonna ramble publicly like this, it’s usually because I want to get something across to other random people. All this to say. Be curious about yourself! We are malleable things. Find functional ways to listen to and stay accountable to yourself. Try to puzzle out small ways you can change to better reach your needs. A system of reflection helps a lot with this, but I can’t tell you exactly what that must be. It’s difficult. But you gotta care for you. All of you.

…Oh, and also I want to demonstrate to any curious onlookers that I’m still kicking. In case anyone ever fears that no online presence means no presence at all. (It’s me. I’m anyone. We’re working on it.)

Outside it is: HOT! Humid!

I’m feeling: approaching acceptance, figuring out where to go from there

Playing: Pokémon HeartGold (sort of)

Listening to: Radiohead – In Rainbows