Do you keep a diary? Why did you start it, and, if you started one then stopped, why was that? What sort of things do (or did) you write about?
I ask as, as a long-time diarist myself, there is an interesting piece in The Guardian today which talks about one woman's diary habit, which she began at the age of fourteen. I started a diary around that age too, but destroyed it after my mother accused me of using cocaine.
A stern scene followed, with both parents perched ram-rod straight in their armchairs, while I was subjected to a heated inquisition. Where had I bought it, and who from? Didn't I know such things led to death and doom? I struggled to decipher their bewildering accusations, until Mum blurted out, "I read it in your diary!"
To find my diary, Mum would first have had to rummage through my dressing table, obviously when I wasn't around to protest. Her intrusion on my privacy was assumed by both parents to be acceptable, and now, with this handwritten confession of buying "white powder", also clearly justifiable.
Considering that I was then receiving 50p a week pocket money, hardly a juicy sum even forty-odd years ago, my alleged drugs habit surely seemed improbable. "Oh, so was it trousers down?" as my mother charmingly phrased it. She always thought the best of everyone, without fail.
So, my young teenaged self begrudgingly and angrily produced the aforementioned white powder. It was indeed powder, and it was definitely white. It was made by Rimmel, for use as highlighter.
In keeping with tradition, neither parent apologised. It would not have entered their heads to do so. It's just the way they were.
But, thanks to this episode, my teen diary-keeping days ended. My feelings about having had my privacy trampled on (yet again) were too strong, so I resisted the temptation to document the trivia of my youth. Most of it would have held no interest to anyone but myself anyway. After all, my life differed little from that of any other fourteen year-old, attending school, giggling with friends, discovering music and culture, pushing at the boundaries of familiar things.
The interest of keeping a diary returned some years later, and I've kept one since. Maybe I should light up the brazier and torch the lot. Nobody can read ashes. I hope nobody ever reads any of it, as it's written purely for me. Sometimes it's my way of letting off steam. Sometimes it's not even as honest as it might be, due to caution in case anyone else should read it. It charts times good and awful, as you'd expect. Everyone's lives are laced with such times, but mostly life is mundane and ordinary - and be glad for this, for that is where peace and tranquillity are found.
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