randomly speaking ... diary

I was once a diarist, I mean, a person who keeps and writes in a diary. I started keeping diaries since my pre-teen years. This conservative diarist wrote everything that happened in her personal life on daily basis in those thick hardcover diaries year by year until she decided that it was enough and stopped. I guess that happened at some time before finishing her first degree. 

 

To me, writing in a diary is a huge emotional matter. Some people might just write chronologies of their day-to-day events or their monetary spending details just for keeping tracks of things. As for me, I wrote my heart out.

 

The things we write in our diaries reflect on who we are as a person and our thinking behaviour. I am not making a study out of this but I think those who keep diaries are sensitive people who thinks too much. But I can't say that people who don't keep diaries are not sensitive and not thinking too much, right? It's not right. So why do some people don't keep diaries?

 

To answer that, I ask myself why did I write before and why I stopped. I guess I have a few reasons for starting to write in diaries. First, I want to let out my feelings and thoughts about things but it's so personal so I can only do it in writing and write it somewhere relatively safe. Second, I like to document things and that include what's going on in my mind. Third, simply because I like reading, hence I like writing. So, maybe some other people do not prefer these ways and opt for a different method.

 

And so, why did I stop doing that? Well, when it's personal, there's happy stuff and sad stuff. Normally we don't get tired reading of happy stuff, do we? Reading back those parts would always make me smile. However, the sad stuff is a different story. After passing some stages in my life, I just thought that keeping sad stories in my life 'sucks'. I didn't want to be reminded of the painful feelings and sad memories anymore. I thought, I should let those parts go far away from my mind. And so I burned them.

 

Burning old diaries. Sounds dramatic to you? Hah, maybe. Can we 'delete' the unwanted parts in our life just by doing that? Of course not. But I did it because of a combination of reasons. First, I didn't want to keep things that I didn't need anymore, in this case, the reminder of unhappy things, but since they were downright personal, I also didn't want any other eyes to see it. Then, as I never stay in one place for too long, transfering thick old personal diaries became quite a fuss. So, with peace in mind, I said goodbye to all those rantings in a small fire at the lawn.

 

Since then, I never write personal stuff 'religiously'. But I guess I can never change who I am. I am that person who like to express things in writing. I found blog. I became more open. With blog I don't just write for myself, but I allow other people to read too. Now it becomes a 'contained' personal stuff, or generalized personal matter. And then it's facebook era. Believe it or not, as much as it is a social media, it is somehow a kind of diary too, depending on how a person use it. I guess I am always a diarist, now with a 'publishing' sense.

 

In the end, I guess whatever I write now, wherever and however I write it, it will be a legacy to someone who matters, someday.