Thanks to @tek for recommending Drafts (https://getdrafts.com) several times because I now have a much more workable (for me) journaling system that fits my needs instead of just dealing with painful aspects of using Notes. I did some digging through "regular" journal tools and they all had major issues for me (usually privacy or usability issues or being too complicated for my journaling use cases which makes using Drafts extremely ironic).