longing for the page

#22 - Advent Calendar 2025

Dear friends,

I hope you had a good start to the week. It’s Christmas this week! I am personally looking forward to having some days off.

There is only seven of you getting these last letters, it’s feeling quite intimate and that makes me feel quite good actually. It’s safe.

On Day 6, I mentioned that I have tried to slow down a lot this year, and that one thing I have picked up is analogue photography. I’ve never had so few pictures on my phone as I have this year. Whenever I want to capture a moment, I allow myself one shot. Goodbye to 143 unsatisfying digital pictures that I’ll forget about in the course of a month. Today, I want to tell you about another practice that I’ve taken up again or increased my practice of this year, with the same intention of slowing down time. Writing longhand on actual paper.

I don’t have a consistent journaling practice. Sometimes I write every day, sometimes every week, and sometimes a whole month goes by without me writing anything until I suddenly miss it so much that I must turn back to the page. I wish I could just stick to journaling every day - it would benefit my mental health a lot - but I am learning to accept that my routines cannot stay the same over the course of the year. It’s OK to do what I need to do when I need it and keep my routines flexible. Sometimes I journal, sometimes I run and sometimes I colour. The only thing I do every single day is reading. That’s easy. I am not sure why, but everything else is always in seasons.