DailyPrompt—1813

Garfield.
Always Garfield. 😅

As a teenager, I was completely attached to my Garfield school planners and Garfield notebooks. A new school planner every year wasn’t optional — it was necessary. Non-negotiable.
I always had a notebook with me.
Everywhere.
Because if inspiration struck, I had to be ready.
And preferably, it had to be written down next to Garfield’s sarcastic little face.
Those notebooks held everything:
thoughts, doodles, half-finished poems, ideas, feelings, and probably a fair amount of teenage drama. They were my safe space before I even knew what that meant.
But then… life happened.
I stopped writing when I was around 17.
Not because I didn’t love it anymore — but because education, work, responsibility, and later children took centre stage. The creative part of me went quiet, not because it disappeared, but because it was needed elsewhere.
The notebooks eventually disappeared too — lost through moves, growing up, and time passing.
It wasn’t until late 2024 that I found my way back to writing again.
Back to words — not as a teenager with a Garfield planner, but as a woman with lived experience, love, grief, courage, and truth that needed somewhere to land.

Looking back, those Garfield notebooks weren’t just school supplies.
They were the first place my voice felt at home.
Life paused the writing.
But it never erased it.
And when it returned, it came back deeper, braver, and more honest than before.
Some attachments don’t fade.
They simply wait until we’re ready to pick them up again. 🧡

💫Maggie

The Afterlove Voice 💫