My first diary was a five-year diary, complete with lock and little ineffective key. I lived in Whispering Firs with my mother, father, sister and brother. I wrote it in infrequently and covered just the boring details of an elementary school life.
The only memorable entry was where I inked the word “cancere” . . . a misspelling of a word that had been foreign to me before that moment. My dad had been diagnosed with Hodgkin’s disease after he found a lump in his neck during a shower. I learned most of the information I had through eavesdropping and observing quietly when no one noticed me in the room.
He was treated by chemotherapy and nearly died from the cure. One night, we came home from church and he totally freaked me out by appearing in my bedroom doorway with a hand towel on his head. He grinned in a Jack Nicholson in “The Shining” sort of deranged way (though, of course, I wouldn’t think that until much later). Then, he plucked the hand towel off of his newly bald head. He’d shaved it while we were gone.
I wanted to cry from shock and fear, but he guffawed with hilarity.
When his hair grew in a bit, he came down with shingles on his scalp. I can still remember my baby sister reaching a chubby hand toward his head while he laid flat in the green recliner. A flurry of activity, his moaning and quick movement by my mother prevented her from touching his scabby, painful, stubbly head. I can still see the yellow ooze covering his angry scalp.
I wrote none of this in the 5-year diary, though.
I abandoned its mostly empty pages.
Some years later, as a teenager, I resumed writing in spiral-bound notebooks. I remember virtually nothing of what I wrote, mostly because I destroyed all my words before I went to college. I had a stack of journals, but I didn’t trust my sister to respect my privacy. So, when I packed up my belongings into boxes, I destroyed the journals. In my memory, I see flames, but I can’t imagine how I might have burned them without being noticed. I may have shredded them instead. I don’t know.
And so, my recorded life in journals begins in college. I have a thick stack of spiral bound notebooks in my bedroom closet. Within those pages is embarrassing proof of my self-centeredness, my struggle with God, my obsession with the losses in my life, and too much self-pity. I haven’t read those journals in years.
I wrote less and less after college, but after my father died (from another form of cancer, years later) I began to etch my pain in the spiral bound pages. I traced my journey from dreaming of motherhood, through infertility, disappointment, an epic struggle with belief, adoption, cross-country moves, motherhood, pregnancy and more.
I haven’t read them in years.
I stopped writing in a spiral-bound journal when I started blogging. In some ways, I’m a better blogger than I was a diarist–my diaries tended to disintegrate into a mess of self-hate and despair, while I am more aware of the lasting nature of my words in a blog. I can see more than just my tarnished soul when I blog in public.
But sometimes, I think writing a diary was more honest, more cathartic. I wonder if I should write privately again, if I’m missing something raw when I censor myself here, so aware of other eyes peering at my words. Plus, when I sit here, I an loathe to record the “boring” details, the stuff that make each day different . . . the mundane. (The challenge, of course, is to make the regular stuff memorable.)
I prize my spiral-bound journals, even though I can’t bear to read them. One day, I’ll get lost in the pages, reviewing years and decades and blushing at how seriously I took myself when I was young and I thought the moon would never again glow like a magic golden ball in that October sky.
Meanwhile, my fingers fly over the keyboard, keeping track of a life lived in a new October with its shiny moon still suspended in the inky sky.
Actual Unretouched Photo 
You write beautifully, that’s for sure. I sometimes ask myself the same question about writing a journal v. blogging, because you do tend to censor yourself (even when writing anonymously, as I do!) Truth is, though, I wouldn’t make time for writing a paper journal these days. If it can’t be done by computer, it doesn’t get done!
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Ah, I recently discovered the journal I kept during my senior year in High School, and I was amazed at the things that I wrote down.
Really gave me a different perspective into my memories of myself.
It’s amazing how ABSOLUTE and FINITE everything seems when you are a teenager.
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I think there is a connection with a hand-scripted word that is lost with type. I loved used books–hardbacks–and whenever I buy one that has “To John, Christmas 1935” written on the inside flap I feel more intimacy than with the story to follow. Silly? Maybe, but I still prefer hand-written thank you notes to emails. It could be because it takes more effort to script something so it necessarily means more. My point is, writing privately, with your own hand is something that might mean a great deal to your children and grandchildren down the road. I wonder if my children will even recognize my handwriting when they’re grown and gone.
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“I prize my spiral-bound journals, even though I can’t bear to read them. One day, I’ll get lost in the pages, reviewing years and decades and blushing at how seriously I took myself when I was young and I thought the moon would never again glow like a magic golden ball in that October sky.
Meanwhile, my fingers fly over the keyboard, keeping track of a life lived in a new October with its shiny moon still suspended in the inky sky.”
Wonderfully written. Your history of journaling reminds me of my own. Only I didn’t destroy my highschool journals. I very much wanted to but I had this nagging feeling in the back of my mind that I would regret it. Probably because my mother had once told me about a naked baby picture of herself that she had destroyed as a child due to embarassment. She always regretted destroying that picture. So I still have my pathetic, self-centered musings to this day, along with letters I wrote to my sister during that time.
Thanks for this post. Very well written Mel.
Nan
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Nice post. I too, don’t have my journals/dairies. They are lost along with some of the memories I may have carried for a while. I understnd the self beating you mention. But I like the phrase you wrote “tarnished soul” and may borrower that for latter use. I bet most of us if not all can relate to that.
Happy Weekend under this great & wonderous October Sky, inked with dottings of glitter.
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I could have written this entry myself, it so reflects how I feel about blogging vs. written private journals. I have several scattered about in different boxes and book cases gathering dust and mildew, I’m sure, since most are in the basement. But I keep hanging on to them. My biggest regret in life is handing over the hand written journal my mom kept in her last year of life as she was dying from colon cancer. I had given it to my brother who’s been totally estranged from my entire family for over 14 years now. As much hate and bitterness he has rotting his soul for us all, I’m sure he and/or my sister-in-law probably destroyed it in a fit or meanness. Ah well…at least I have the memory of her words in my mind, even if I can no longer hold it and read it.
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I have many journals, most painful and embarassing to reread, and yet without them I may forget how I have changed, how I have grown. I still keep a handwritten journal, and it is mainly for recording things that hurt and run too deep to make public, I guess for me it’s a form of catharsis.
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I have a collection of diaries my Grandmother kept between the years 1937 and 1947. Those years cover her early marriage and the birth of her two children and WWII. They are 5 year diaries and so only contain the briefest of entries, most of which one would consider boring day to day stuff. But you know, as I read through them I was amazed at how much I actually learned about my Grandmother and about the times in which she lived. Even with very minimal entries the love for her family, the boredom of a housewife, the deprivations during the war, the fear of a mother as she nursed her children through various childhood diseases all came across and left a pretty big impression on me. I posted on my blog about my acquisition of and reading of the diaries. It is a piece I’m actually proud of and hope that it pays tribute to a woman I love so very much. It can be found here:
http://the-iceberg.blogspot.com/2006/07/grandma-diaries.html
And yes, the picture is my Grandmother.
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If I have to handwrite anything it won’t get done.
I’d either drag out my ancient typewriter or write it on the computer but not on a blog.
It’s a thought. I never lie but there is much that never sees the light of day on my blog.
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“Within those pages is embarrassing proof of my self-centeredness…”
Don’t be embarrassed about this. I don’t think we realize when we are teenagers/young adults how self-centered we all are, how EVERYTHING is about US, how EVERYTHING revolves around US. I never realized this until my own children reached this age, especially my daughter. I think we all go through this, it’s part of the way we get to know ourselves, how we evolve into the person we become. I also feel that some people never get out of this stage.
With the advent of computers, I have become much more comfortable typing as I think, rather than hand-writing the same. If a person wants a more private, honest journal, they could put their thoughts into a word processing program on their computer, instead of a paper notebook. I did this quite awhile ago with our kitchen remodeling project…the only problem is, our computer crashed and I lost it, so I guess a person should back up their important stuff regularly.
Great post
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beautiful
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