When I started pondering their fate, my initial reaction was to destroy them. But that’s a Scorpio habit for you - we are often too quick to burn bridges, cut off our noses, and rid ourselves of what we think we no longer need. With age, I have become less inclined to see life in stark terms of black and white, becoming more open to those shades of grey (no, not THOSE shades of grey…good grief and heaven forfend…) - but that phoenix-like button of destruction is still there, waiting to be deployed. I like to think it has a soft, padded, fluffy cover on it now. Something you’d have to wallop with a pretty substantial mallet to make work.
Anyway, a couple of weeks ago I was home alone and I found myself sitting on the floor of my writing room, diaries spread around. I decided to re-read them. That would be how to identify their value, I thought. Once read, I would know for certain if they were needed in my life.
So I read. And read. And read. Milestones, weather, gripes, joys. Day-to-day life snippets. Plans, successes, regrets. Frustrations, comedy. Moments I would never forget. Some where I thought, I don’t remember THAT happening at all.
What I read was a collection of patterns, of constant themes that kept applying and reapplying themselves to my life. I began to realise that these diaries, that spanned 14 years of my middle life, had been a support network to get me to where I am now. You know, that idea of writing stuff down so it doesn’t roil around your head in an annoying way? Writing stuff down to make it happen? Writing stuff down because it’s easier to make sense of something when it’s there on a page, somehow disconnected from the inside you. Those diaries had been my counsel and my sounding board, a friend almost, over those years.
And because I’ve been going though a process of letting go and moving on, it became very clear that actually, no, I did not need these diaries. They had served their purpose. And to hold onto them for whatever reason - sentimentality, duty, the time and effort that had gone into their making - would only hold me in the past and I knew now I was stepping forward into My Life - The Next Thrilling Episode. A life book had closed - those diaries were telling me it was a life book way overdue for return to the library. My memory is good - important stuff would be remembered, whatever was forgotten was of no value.
And so, with thanks and not a moment of regret, I dismantled them all and cremated them in the wood-burning stove. (There was only one half a page I kept. It contained an idea for a children’s book called ‘Butterfly, Bee, Cockroach, Flea’ - a story about an insect detective agency. I felt that still had legs. Lots, with them, being insects and all.)
I shall continue to keep a diary, but it will be different in form, tone and intent, its foundations set in the precious lessons learned from those previous 14 years of record keeping. It will be the kind, as life continues and expands, of which Gwendolen from ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’ would approve - ‘I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train.’
Comments
KJ