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Dear Diary
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I started journaling (should that have two "l"s?) when I was going through a divorce in '98 and continued for many years, but stopped shortly after I met my husband. I ritually burned the journals in my fireplace one night and haven't looked back.
i keep some sort of diary/journal, but i only write when i feel like it, and only what i feel like writing. most of it is about dreams i had or books i've read. i have been keeping it since 2004 and i'm only up to 'part four'.
I've periodically kept a journal, then read back over it and torn it up. Haven't tried again for years. Anyone looking back on my life will have to piece together what was fiction and what was fact from my songs and stories.
I remember trying to keep a journal a couple of years back...but that requires discipline and time, both aspects I lack..
I don't have a journal per se, but I have a notebook with notes to myself. Things like what I thought the first time I held my children, lessons I've learned that I never want to forget, things I want to say to my kids but I need to wait for them to be age appropriate, a reminder to never get pregnant again because I am no good at it or giving birth, and some of my dreams and goals that I have put off for now but want to reach someday. I don't think I could keep up with a daily journal but I really like having a sporadic one.
I've kept a journal off and on for about fifteen years. Most of it is on my blog now, but I have some hard copies of old journals, word-processed and computed. If my house burns down my journals are fucked.
Oh God. I got my first diary the same Christmas I got The Diary of Anne Frank and I was religious about it for years...up until I was about 21 or 22 and my boyfriend read one. That sort of ruined it for me because I couldn't be as honest and reckless as I'd always been. Every time I wrote something I pictured someone reading it and that changed the whole experience for me. I still keep a journal but in a much smaller way. I only write once in a while and just surface stuff about the kids, and what's going on in my life...things I'd let anyone read.I have 30 or so diaries from when I was all gangbusters about it and I have no idea what to do with them. I can't bring myself to throw them out because it's fascinating for me to go back and read them. But if something were to happen to me, I worry that my family will get ahold of them. I'm sure I said some pretty nasty things about everyone in my life at some point. Especially my mother. A friend of mine has sworn to burn them when I die but I'm not sure I believe she'll do it. I don't know that my husband would let her. They currently live in a fire safe just so no one's curiosity gets the better of them. Is there a way to have something locked up in a safety deposit box not to be opened until a certain year or something? Seems pretty dramatic...
I thought of putting mine in a safe deposit box, too, Gretchen. How much do they cost? I also need to make copies at Kinko's or something. I'm talking about the old ones, probably fifteen years old, I don't have saved electronically...
RA, let me know if you figure anything out and I'll do the same. They're precious to me but also pretty fucking dangerous.
This is one confusing Mouseketeer roll call.
Going back to the original question (sorry - I would join in the RHS one-liners but I'll just get carried away and my editing would not get done). I kept a diary from the age of 7. Never daily - sometimes leaving months between entries - but I always kept one. Then, I had a massive break-up with an ex-boyfriend. He took all of my diaries from the age of 7 up until the age of 23. I've find it hard to keep a diary since then - I've tried but there's part of me that expects to lose them again.
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At some point, instead of keeping a diary, I started keeping photocopies of all the personal letters I sent to friends and family. Sadly, no one writes letters anymore so I don't really have any recent letters in the file.
I have two dream journals.
I don't exactly keep a journal or diary now - I do keep computer files where I write down (uh, type) things of interest, but they're not deep, searing, personal things for the most part.
I went to hear Margaret Atwood speak in San Francisco, and when they threw it open for questions, someone asked her if she kept a journal. She immediately looked very meek and said, "I know I should...." Ha!
I'm asking because I just found my journal from when I was 10. It's pink, and it has a place for a lock, but the outside is made out of plastic, so I'm assuming that I lost the key and ripped it open. As it turns out, I was in love with a boy named Caleb, but then he turned out to be a jerk, so I fell in love with a boy named Travis (and I couldn't stand someone named Michael or Charlie), and I fantasized about Travis picking me up in a limo wearing a white suit...but then he turned out to be an ass too.
I've never been a...dedicated journal keeper. I always try, but then I just don't. I bought two Moleskines thinking that was going to make me write more (I know. Look at this fuckin' hipster), but it didn't work.
How about you?