When I was seven years old, I received a diary for Christmas, even though I’m pretty sure my Christmas list called for “dairy.” It was a pink hardcover volume with a Mary Engelbreit illustration on the front and a lock between the two covers. I kept the key in my pencil cup because, duh, who would look there for the key to my top-secret diary? My first entry detailed that Christmas morning: what gifts I received (including “this diary,” as though it weren’t self-evident), what we ate, and descriptions of every gift we were bringing to my grandmother’s house that evening. I felt the need to include explanations of everybody in my family in parenthetical references, which was an odd practice in the context of my surreptitious key concealment. Despite my best intentions, I had a hard time writing in the book because of its construction. I’d lie on my stomach in my day bed, writing earnestly, but in one wrong move, one side of the book would whip up and slap me in the cheek. I also struggled with the idea that I was writing a letter to some nebulous person. Who was Diary, exactly? And why did she care about what was going on with me? Diary was a she, of course. It was a pink journal, after all.
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I went to camp for the first time when I was eight years old and I was so excited. A whole week to go swimming and make funky crafts? Yes, please! Although I had no traces of homesickness, my mom sent along a care package with my ride. The brown-paper-wrapped shoebox contained small gifts like a flashlight, pictures of the family, and best of all, a small, spiral-bound journal. On it, a sticky note read, “Just so you don’t forget to tell us anything.” That week, I used a mechanical pencil to scrawl out breathless narratives about how camp was “soooooooooo fun,” I would be best friends with my bunkmates forEVER, and I never wanted to go home, ever. From that week on, I eschewed the “Dear Diary” format.
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In high school, I developed a habit of acquiring gel pens of all shades of the rainbow and I resolved not to use the same color two days in a row, resulting in a rather blinding display when I looked back for some cringe-worthy reading. The same thoughts always emerged: I can’t believe I liked that boy. Those girls are still that mean. I’m so glad I went to school out of state. Over the years, a blank book was always a safe gift for me, but I was picky. I always accepted blank books for various purposes, but for writing, I needed a spiral binding, lines on both sides of the paper, and a size somewhere between a half-sheet and a school notebook. In ten years, between that week of summer camp and high school graduation, I had filled up a journal every other month. My bookshelves were filled with books crowded with tiny cursive handwriting in fluorescent colors, detailing how deep and sensitive I was.
Going back and reading about my adolescent drama wasn’t exactly nostalgic for me; it was akin to looking at an album of gawky, fashionless, glasses-filled self-portraits. Even so, I kept the books until I came home to clear out my bedroom because I was moving into my first apartment. Moving between dorm rooms for four years had made me a frugal packer and I knew that the time had come. After flipping through the pages and sighing, I loaded all of the books into a box destined for the trash. Trash is such a harsh word; it’s not quite what I meant at the time, nor now. The real purpose and benefit of the journals was to help me process what I was experiencing, not to preserve it like a personal museum. That purpose has been fulfilled and I no longer needed to hold on to the physical books. In a way, I’m proud of the “body of work” I created at such a young age; what it lacked in panache it made up for in quantity and heart. That’s worth something, I think.
8 comments
I have thrown away all my old journals too. Like you, I used them to process experiences, not to keep records of everything. And I realized that if anyone I knew found and read them, I would be mortified. I am kind of sad that they are gone, but I don’t regret my decision.
Yeah, I feel you on all fronts. Heck, if I found the journals, I would also be mortified. Some things are best left alone.
Now, that’s where I draw the line and transform from Clean Sweeper to Packrat. I can’t get rid of my old diaries. They sit on a shelf in our “home office”. But I don’t have as many as you did, in fact almost all of my entries start with “I can’t believe it’s been so long since I’ve written in here!”
Oh, trust me, I wrote that intro line plenty of times. But I’d always make up for it by writing like 20 pages at a time and end up with an aching hand and a blister on my knuckle.
I tend to journal only when I’m going through a traumatic time (which is part of the reason I picked up blogging… to try to write when I’m actually happy). I have a long journal filled with thoughts from my breakup with my college boyfriend. It is so painful to read back and see how completely wiped I was emotionally during that experience (page after page of “You will feel happy again. You WILL feel happy again.”), but I’m glad I have a record of it, if only to see how far I’ve come.
Yes, it seems that journaling reveals the trauma in my life, too. I recently went back to one of my more recent tomes and wondered why my handwriting was so awful. Oh, that’s right. I was crying as I wrote it. I guess that’s why I don’t want to keep it around. I went through the catharsis, so why do I want that junk I purged around me anymore? Shrug.
I was a crappy journalist when I was younger. What am I talking about? I still am, but now I pick subjects other than my personal life to keep me interested most of the time.
But I have one journal that I’ve kept from my 5th-grade days, which doesn’t have much in it but verboten entries about my emerging sexuality. (OMGZ! BOOBIES! Pathetic, I know.)
But…I keep it, along with letters from past girlfriends, because it helps me sometimes to go through and see how far I’ve progressed and how much I’ve changed and grown. It can be…painful…at best, but it reminds me that no matter how much I might feel insecure or incomplete, I was a lot worse off years ago.
Hi, Nathan! You reminded me that I used to have, in addition to piles of journals, shoeboxes full of notes from my friends folded in crazy notebook-paper origami. Oh, man. How many trees gave their lives in the name of teen angst?
Great post
I, too, have a huge pile of journals, dating all the way back to when I was 11 years old, and I have no idea what to do with them. I rarely ever read them (way, WAY too embarrassing!), but I can’t quite bring myself to throw them away, although I sometimes think I should just grit my teeth and get on with it.
Hi, by the way - I just found your blog randomly, but this entry really struck a chord.
Amber
Hi! I don’t necessarily promote throwing away journals for everybody, but for me, it made sense. I think it all depends on if you (and your spouse!) are willing to put up with having them around, you know?
I threw away my journals when I moved to Austin. I was so embarassed by them and couldn’t stand to even read them (let alone someone ELSE). I regretted it a bit, but really, I think it was the right choice for me. Great entry!
Hi, Janssen! I feel the same way in that there’s a little bit of regret in tossing the journals, but mostly it’s okay. The biggest shock was seeing all of the books in one place because there were SO MANY. Yikes.
I have thrown away a few of my journals. Others I have kept but seldom read those. Maybe I don’t want to look back. Who knows?
Welcome to SS! Keep posting.
Hi! It’s not my first time with SS, but I am rather erratic as to when I follow the prompts. Thanks for the kind words!
i actually keep my diaries. sometimes when i read back, i get this idea in my mind like “whoa! who is this person?” i actually like reading my old diaries just to get a kick at how foolish / dramatic i was.
Hi! Yes, it can be very amusing, especially the propensity to use italics and hyperbole. But when I want to stab my eyes out, it’s time to get rid of things. Just me, though.
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