About twice a month I sit down and write a letter addressed to my mother, which she will never read, in which I tell her something. Sometimes it is a small update on my week. Sometimes it is a large thing I have been avoiding thinking about. I write it as a letter — “dear mom” at the top, sign my name at the bottom, seal it in an envelope, put it in a drawer.
The framing is doing all the work. When I journal without an addressee, my writing collapses into fragments — observations, half-formed thoughts, complaints. When I write to a specific person who I know will not read it, my writing gets structured. Sentences become paragraphs. Vague feelings become specific stories. My mother has 40 years of context on me, so I do not have to explain the whole backstory of anything — I can go straight to what changed this week and why it matters.
My mother knows the letters exist. She has offered to read them; I have gently declined. The point is not the reader. The point is the specific mental posture of writing to someone who loves you and knows you and will not judge you. If you have never tried it and you find journalling flat, try one letter to one person. Sign it. Put it away. See what changed on the page.