I started writing a diary at age eight and stopped ten years later. I wish I had persevered. Now I have little record of all the calamitous events that have made up my life.
A diary is like a set of photographs – it presents a statement, an event; but to you, you become a time traveller, where the pleasures and pains behind the entries are still real, the circumstances leading to those words expanding at the speed of light within your present-day consciousness. This is an activity you might welcome when sitting comfortably in your easy recliner armchair with your cup of cocoa, or your cigarettes and your gin, recounting your stories to your forgetful grandchildren or grandnephews (which is why you need to repeat yourself with versions better than the last until you find the one that catches their attention).
My father started writing a diary in 1956 and kept it up for sixty years. Our joint endeavours have borne fruit within the pages of my memoir.
Journaling is something different. A typical five-year diary allows you only three or five lines, which takes no time at all to fill. It is easy to squeeze out five minutes in the day to find something to say. On the other hand, a journal is a silent soliloquy – more time-consuming, allowing for more depth. You may know early on which type of writing suits you better. I don’t feel I have lost out by using only the five-year diary format. I don’t need copious amounts of writing to recall the events that caused me to pen what I did.
I dabbled in keeping a journal after leaving school and before getting married but soon got bored with it. I’d occasionally pick it up and write what can only be described as somewhat self-obsessive ramblings. This did not deter my second husband from taking the notebook from my dressing table and handing it to his divorce lawyer with a grand ‘ta-dah.’ I had written that I enjoyed spending money, but as an undergraduate, that was not an indication that I had the wherewithal to do so or that I ever did. He was told to return it to my dressing table, as musings from twenty years before I ever met him were not going to assist him in his claim for half my house. Take heed of this warning: some people will see a diary or a journal as an opportunity to destroy you. You may need to couch your language in a way that only holds meaning for you.
What may seem banal to you may be of great interest to generations down the line. You had avocado on toast for breakfast? That’s nothing special, unless you live in a time when the transport of fruit internationally is banned due to climate change concerns. We see the behaviours of generations long gone as unacceptable, yet we are not expecting to be judged for our own practices. These times we live in will become somebody else’s history lesson. I can’t help but promote the benefits of diary writing. Own your present, in your own words.
I think I’ve got another twenty years left in me, and who knows what adventures I’ll capture in my five lines a day.