I wonder do many people keep diaries nowadays? What with social media encouraging us to share our everyday lives online and the lack of penmanship, I suspect the numbers are few.
I began a diary six weeks after my dad died and wrote in it for over 25 years. It was a place to vent initially, to pour out my pain onto its pages and begin to process life without Dad. There are so many thoughts and memories contained within those pages, covering student nurse me, newly engaged me, my early years as a young mother and so much more.
Then, six years ago I took a different direction and began this blog, Initially I didn’t think anyone would see it and certainly never suspected anyone would read it. I was wrong.
Over the past six years I’ve enjoyed sharing my thoughts here, but there is little doubt that knowing others are reading, has in some ways removed the free flow of my writing. Many comment that my writing is honest.
But is it?
Is it honest to half say something? Or even not to speak of it at all? Now that I know you are reading, am I myself when I write or the person behind, “My Thoughts On A Page” Have I changed as a writer, or do I still enjoy freedom of speech?
Writing is a strange pastime. We are solitary as we write, but once published we want company and care what others think. Tonight, even as I write this post, I care what you think and yet, in the back of my mind sits the post I wish I was writing. It’s not controversial or damning, but it is personal.
So, write it I will, freely and honestly… in my diary. Perhaps I will write on it’s cover, just as I did as a child, “Private. Keep Out. In six years I seem to have come full circle!
“
My thoughts on a page. 
My 11 yr old has a diary, she sits on the couch beside me and just writes away, sometimes up in her room with her headphones on. Its something I hope she keeps up 🙂
I suspect she will. I had one every year as a child up to about 14. It was a habit I returned to and have done so yet again.
I’ve had one from the age of 11 until now – I am 25. I write much less and very critically, keeping things mundane and simple, but there is something deep within that compels me to keep a personal diary – I feel like I am missing a limb if I don’t have it to write it at the end of a day. I think what you say here rings very true for a lot of people. There is a strange yearning to ‘tell all’, but also a deep-rooted knowledge that some thoughts are meant to be kept personal.
Indeed. There is a part of me that can’t not write, and I love to write, share and engage. But now and again it is deeply personal… for my eyes only.
Okay. You are me – Almost anyway. I’ve kept a journal since I was 12. I’m now 52. (You do the math 🙂 I, too have a blog for a few years in order to encourage others, share how God carried me though a few tough times, along with ENCOURAGING a few to, well…um… buy my book. I was just thinking of sharing a bit from my journal.
I think all should keep a journal – one you need real paper and pen – the good old fashion way.
so.. YOU GO GIRL !
Thanks Marianne. Best of luck with the book. I’ve four children and I don’t think any have interest in writing a diary but I wish they had. It’s a wonderful outlet.
Ahh amnesia lane,. Reading yester thoughts edited or not. I have to ages to avoid me smoking on the stakes now and again as in it’s okay to hurt and even know the names atop circumstances but it’s really sad to read a little tirade later and whooey have I put out a few!! Burnnnnnn baby burnnnnnn. But it’s also fun to know to see an idea return and how in the new time you’ve changed…maybe not remembering even the edits usually here only to protect the guilty. I know though only what you share so how later you may get found out editing!!! 😉 Usually is amusing.
why I’m not you. An example of your point on silly houses of a cheap nature and an air powered van for world travel if you don’t mind the solar requirement of two to three days to freeze enough air as fuel http://starmanjones.xanga.com/2013/01/21/why-im-not-you/
congrats on the six and the journal years before, like you, I feel a need to write, and have gone from private to public. I’m happy with it overall, but I do weigh out what to say at times, knowing that it is open to all –
Yes and when people you know read it, it’s even more difficult.
yes, times. a million
Interesting about the full circle, Tric
Yes, that revelation made me smile.
I certainly temper what I write on my blog, but in the last few years I have also been writing a journal which is uncensored. I should probably burn it!
Now, that must be some read Candi. All you cannot say and probably some of what you would rather not even be thinking. Journaling at its best.
I kept diaries from when I was a teenager till mid 20s. There were phases where I didn’t write for weeks or months and then times I’d write daily. I think It stopped around the time I moved in with my husband and started my blog. Well I still have it but rarely write in it. Maybe we need to create new completely anonymous blogs and then we can really write absolutely everything without censoring!
I did think about creating an anonymous blog, but it’s so much easier to just open my diary and I’m happy if no one reads it.
Your blog will be very interesting for your little one to read in years to come.
I’ve never kept a diary. If I ever wanted to do that, I think I’d have to keep one in a Word document, because I can type so much faster than I can write 🙂
Funny that’s sort of how I feel too. It’s not so much that I’m a faster typer, but I can barely read my own writing.