A Girl and Her Notebook Mountain

I’ve always been the type to write things down. Whether it be things I have to do, something I need to remember, or my thoughts it’s likely going to get the pen and paper treatment.

I also rarely get rid of my notebooks since they are the best record I have of growing up as a shy kid who wasn’t fond of photos. At this point all of my notebooks could fit in a few cardboard boxes so I don’t consider the past 20+ years of notebooks to be the notebook mountain alluded to by the title.

Photo by Pixabay from Pexels

The notebook mountain is both a physical entity — my stack of planners, notebooks, and notepads on my desk — but also a mental and emotional one, where everything I want to accomplish or that takes up energy from me thinking about them resides.

The most common words in this notebook mountain are “what if” and “when I”. Some parts of this notebook mountain are better at coming to life than others. They’re goals that are more easily met, or ideas put into motion with less effort, less emotional labour, and less risk.

The long term residents are harder to get moving. They require investment, whether it be time, emotional bandwidth, or money. The reward for pursuing them isn’t guaranteed, and they could fail and be a waste of an investment.

The thing about my notebook mountain is that it’s like any other mountain; while it may seem immense and unmoving, it is still malleable. Wind and rain can wear down the rock to reveal layers to the sun. A landslide could be the thing that allows an unmoving, seemingly permanent part to move on and start a journey. Shrubs and grass can sprout between the rocks and dirt, weaving them together until the next great movement. While the changes are slow, the mountain does change, and nothing is as impossible as it seems.