What shall I write about? I asked. The smell of rain. Thirty minutes in your journal, someone said. Haven’t journaled in a long, long time, I thought. Not since I accidentally on purpose left my diary in my mother’s room and she read it and got her feelings hurt, which was predictable because I was really mad at her at the time and wrote about that, but I wasn’t really mad at her, just frustrated because I was twenty-four and trying to get her to tell me about who my birthmother was and she was taking that all personally and poor-poor pitiful me, plus I had my first girlfriend and really wanted to tell my mother, but had no clue how to do that, and when I wrote down my feelings, it all sounded a lot like me being mad at her, especially since I accidentally on purpose left it for her to find, I guess. And she read it all. And then she died, so I decided it was the journal’s fault – that it had killed my young fifty-six year old mother sure as taking a sledgehammer to her heart and breaking it in a million bits. I wrote my last secret words in 1982 because secret words kill people.
The rain smells a lot like that.
nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands.” – e.e.cummings
P.S. Never put in writing anything you don’t want to see on the front page of The New York Times.
#1 by Kim Mytelka on June 26, 2011 - 11:01 am
My first diary, which I had written my daily thoughts and feelings diligently – but only for me to reread, was stolen by a ‘boyfriend’ and read throughout the school when I was in eighth grade. It was horrible and messy and totally humiliating! I’ve never kept a diary since.
#2 by Alex on June 26, 2011 - 11:05 am
Words like poison,
Sink into soul,
Warp heart.
Alex
#3 by janetcohen on June 26, 2011 - 1:41 pm
Thank you for this. I could keep reading your bleeding veins. They teach me well.
My sister once asked me what I’ll do with my boxes and boxes of journals. I was dumbfounded; some of the material would hurt more than heal others, though they all helped me as I wrote them. I chose to donate them to a women’s studies program, with a clause about how many years had to pass before they could make the work public. I’m at peace with that.
#4 by Melissa on June 26, 2011 - 2:44 pm
Heavy, Alice. I used to look at journaling as the poor person’s psychotherapy. I quit when I realized how similar all the entries are, an important discovery but blah…blah…blah. Dialogue trumps repetitive internal monologue any day! Thesis, Anti-thesis, Synthesis…ad infinitum…(my version of liberte, egalite, …)
#5 by Alice Melott on June 26, 2011 - 2:45 pm
Strangely, this piece was comedic when I wrote it in my head…
#6 by Melissa on June 26, 2011 - 2:46 pm
I felt it…but comedy can still be heavy..
#7 by Beth on June 26, 2011 - 2:46 pm
So sorry you had to endure that pain. A similar thing happened to me when I was in college, but without the dire results – just alienation for a long, long time. Hope you overcame the guilt. It was an honest request.