The Bittersweet Feeling Of Breaking In A New Notebook

(And the difficulty of letting go of the old one.)

There is nothing I love more than prizing off the protective plastic of a brand new notebook, and the smell of the fresh paper that arrives with it.

I know this book is going to be with me everywhere I go for at least the next two months. It will accompany from room to room as I move around the house, and it will get packed in any bag I plan to leave the house with.

But most importantly it will hold every scratch and scribble I make while it still contains a blank page to write on. I will fill it with daily musings, frantically etched notes on books and courses I undertake, it will track my good and bad habits, cuttings from magazines, even drawings from my children. I will burden it with all manner of my crazy ideas for things I will never make, do or create. I will seek consolation within it's pages. I will ask it questions it somehow manages to answer perfectly every single time.

It will get stained and scratched, the corner of it's pages will often become dogeared and curled.

It will frustrate me and motivate me in equal measure, but ultimately there will be a great and mutual love.

Then eventually our time together will become inescapably shorter, until one day we can no longer be together anymore. On that fickle day I will be forced to discard her, and all the treasured memories she carries, all the trials and tribulations, all of the joys and sorrows we shared together.

But as sad as that day may be, I know I have a new friend to get to know. We will be strange and awkward at first, that's always the case, but we will become the dearest of friends, family even.

So as I say hello, I have to say goodbye. It's bittersweet.