I reread my old journals last week. More specifically, the notebooks begin in eighth grade and go through college. I read all of it. Want one word to describe the reading experience? PAINFUL. That I ever worried about someone thumbing through those notebooks is laughable. Anyone who got through more than five pages deserves a medal. (I think there are lessons here for writers by the way, but I’ll get to that later.)
I expressed such depth of feeling on every page of those notebooks. Every bit of life was “amazing” or “horrible.” Really, the writing is so honest and raw, I often winced while I turned pages, read with one eye shut, or literally looked away for a minute before I could stand to read more. There was a long sob story on a night during my freshman year of high school when I realized I hadn’t made the pom pon squad. You would’ve thought someone burned down our house. Incidentally, I made the squad the next year and pretty much hated it. Since I’d driven my parents crazy claiming pom pon as “my ultimate dream” and taken someone’s spot, my parents made me stay on for my junior and senior year, providing me with a great topic for my college essay called “Be Careful What You Wish For.” I saved that piece of writing, too.
But I digress. To be fair, “painful” is not the only word that comes to mind. Another is enlightening. Before reading my journals, I remembered my younger self as a serious, studious person who was above all the petty teen “stuff.” Turns out that in high school I was boy crazy, weight obsessed, and that’s about it.
As for writerly lessons, I’ve thought quite a bit about the concept of an unreliable narrator since finishing the journals. There are events in our lives. Then there’s how we (real people and characters) interpret those events. Our interpretations color our memories and change them. We assign blame, motive—much of it a product of our faulty and unfair analysis of the moment while we’re experiencing it. Certainly our characters would do the same thing. They’d remember situations only through their already preconceived notions of the people involved, much like I erroneously remembered myself as serious and studious. If we’re wrong about how we remember ourselves, certainly we ought to be more generous in how we remember others.
Finally, I want to share two interesting moments from the end of the journal. We writers all have versions of our writing history. I knew I wanted to be a writer when . . . When I tell mine, I usually say I didn’t get serious about writing until 2007 when my second child was three months old. That’s true, but only to a point. Look at what I found in my journal from 10/17/1998:
- “I sent my poem to a poetry contest at The Missouri Review. I don’t at all expect to win, but it made me take my writing very seriously for a moment, and I loved that moment.”
The Missouri Review is serious business. (Of course they rejected me.) In 1998 I was a senior in college finishing a double major in political science and Spanish. Poetry? What the heck? Turns out the way I’ve been telling my writing story is a prime example of being an unreliable narrator. I had so much free time during my junior year abroad in Chile that I ended up playing around with poetry. How could you not in the land of Pablo Neruda? In my memory, that time of writing was a silly, playful experiment. But apparently, at the time I’d considered it something more.
And finally, here was THE short paragraph in my journal from June 1999 that made rereading some of those painfully dramatic pages all worth it. For some context, I’d recently graduated from college, and I’d been dating Bryan (now my husband) for six months.
- “For the first time, I want children. I want to raise them so they’ll be good people. I want to contribute something to this world. I want to write and be a good parent.”
I’m living the dream, guys. I really am. This is exactly what I wanted. And it’s so much better than the pom pon squad. 
Do ever look through old journals? Have any of you decided to throw your old journals away?
Nina (@NinaBadzin)
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Welcome! I am a freelance writer living in Minneapolis with my husband and four children. My essays on parenting, social media etiquette, improving my habits, Jewish life and more appear in the Huffington Post, Kveller.com, The Jewish Daily Forward and elsewhere. I'm glad you found your way here!
How wonderful to have known your dream. My two dreams have always been to be a mom and be a published author. I guess we know ourselves more than we sometimes believe we do. I always tell my son, on his birthday, that he made me what I wanted to be, because before him I wasn’t a mom. He’s 19 now! (I have a daughter too, which is not any less wonderful of course) I suppose if and when my book is published, I’ll tell it the same thing!
When I was ten years old, I wrote this in my diary:
I want to be a teacher and a writer. Like Judy Blume.
So even in elementary school, I knew the path I’d take.
But then I entered middle school and became weight-obsessed and boy crazy, too.
It’s amazing I ever ended up circling back to my dream.
Still, I love your insight into the unreliable narrator. I happen to know I flat-out lied in some of my journals. To spice things up. Because I was boring and I knew it.
Then again, I was never on the cheer-leading squad. I can only imagine my journal entries would have been thrilling.
Maybe.
XO
This was a great post, Nina. I, too, have tried to reread my journals dating back to 6th grade and I can’t get more than a few pages into them. I sound so sad and full of teenage angst. I wish the present me could have told the teenage me that it would all work out in the end. I think those journals will provide good conversations when my own girls are standing on the brink of adolescence. But for now, they will remain hidden away.
The thing I am most aware of when I read my old journals, other than the cringe factor, which you describe to a tee by the way, is that my dreams have turned out better than I imagined them. As humans we are so limited in the scope of our dreams. Life, God, whatever you believe is responsible for these things, usually has something much better in store for us. Not quite what we imagined, but better – so who cares!
Fun post, Nina. Thanks for the memories
Oh that’s s true. Life is for sure way better than I ever dreamed! I feel lucky that I can say that.
Good post, Nina. I have read my old travel journals and my old letters home from Vietnam, which my mother always kept for me. They have been a great help in my writing, as atrocious and embarrassing as they were.
What a treasure to have old letters YOU wrote. You’re mom did such a great thing saving them. I have tons of letters other people wrote me over the years (as in, way before email). I’d do anything to see some of the ones I’d written to other people. Thanks for reading and commenting!
The perfect post. I loved this. Simply loved it.
Last fall, my teen daughter discovered my huge box of journals (written from age 12-18) and secretly began reading them. My mortification was off the charts when I discovered the breach, so I feel your pain. I would love to think there is some kernel of enlightenment in my journals, but I fear not. It’s mainly about criticizing the “skanks” and “burn outs” and (like you) obsessing about boys and heart ache. I didn’t make cheerleading either.
But your point about unreliable narrators gave me serious pause. It’s a great reminder for those of us who write fiction, and I appreciated the reminder. Maybe I’ll take another peek at those journals. Maybe.
Note to self burn teenage angst journals before my girls get to the age where they can read… Thanks…
Okay, that story will now give me the chills for a long while. Maybe I should toss them! The idea of my daughters reading the weight stuff especially would worry me. . . and some other stuff too.
My parents moved several years ago and asked me to clean out my old bedroom. In doing so, I discovered my journals from middle school and high school. They were so sad that I actually threw them out — I was so worried that if anything ever happened to me and somebody found them, they would have a horribly warped view of my life. I think back on them often, though, and realize how difficult it is to be a teenage girl. If I ever have a daughter, I hope that the memories of what I wrote will help me to be compassionate about those challenging years in her life!
Great fun post. Every couple of years I read through my high school and college journals. I was one of those people who would journal really well for a couple of weeks and then drop off. The way you describe it is EXACTLY how it is for me. In fact it’s quite embarrassing to think I was ever like that. But it has given me the drive to make more of an effort to teach my girls from an early age what is important in life, what’s worth wasting time on (not boys!) and that life won’t always be like this.
I’m not a writer so I’m not sure I understand the unreliable narrator. It seems to me to be when a character who is the first person narrator says/thinks something that drives me crazy. Such as the girl who doesn’t realize how much the boy likes her. It drives me crazy because it’s true. We’re so blind sometime that having that pointed out in a story can be painful… like reading about my sad narrow-minded teenage self. LOL. Another great post!
Yup- the main thing to remember with a first-person narrator (and also close third-person) is that we’re only getting one side of the story. It’s hard to remember that in life AND in novels! Thanks for the great comment here by the way!
Self as unreliable narrator is interesting. I recently got back in touch with my closest friend in school after twenty years, and the difference in some of the details of what we remember is astounding.
Now there’s a potential novel idea there for you . . . ?
I teach a workshop, “The Maze Project”. This workshop is all about the creative process and is designed for individuals to find and explore their own creative voice when making art. The Maze Project requires a year to a year and a half to complete. I request the participants keep a journal. The journal is useful for each to write about their internal world as they encounter insights and impasses along the way. What they write reflects their path through the Maze Project. The participants are often amazed when they discover they have come full circle. The seeds of their own artistic voice existed long before their finished projects became realities.
Nice post, Nina. I occasionally read through my old journals (h.s. and college years) and, like you, I wince at the topics that I tended to focus on. It’s all this teen angst with the uncertain future and all kinds of talk about this girl or that. But I’m glad I saved them. What I find interesting is that I wrote these long ago and each time I go back to read them, I interpret them just a bit different. Age and distance gives me the opportunity to see them in a different light. I also find it helpful to go back to them to help recall past moments. Unlike some other commenters, I recall writing them with the fear that they might be read down the road by my progeny or so forth. So, for these reasons, I think I never discussed a topic that I wouldn’t want my daughter to read (perhaps I’m not too private anyway). Or maybe, I will even go back to my journals when she’s in h.s./college so I can help myself recall what she might be going through/thinking.
Peter–I didn’t mention that in the post directly, but I FOR SURE held back in those journals with the worry someone would see them. I think I especially left out major things in the college sections. I wish I hadn’t been so guarded . .. would love to know my real thoughts from back then.
Thanks for reading and commenting! Do you have a blog? Are you Twitter? Curious how you found me!
Nina- Re: holding back, definitely agree I’d like to know more about my real thoughts.
And I can’t recall how I first ran across your blog, but somehow I did (probably a link from someone on Twitter). It was to the blog post “New Writer Finds Readers (and Frets).” I jumped around your blog pages, and I enjoyed your writerly advice and thoughts. Now I follow you on Twitter (I’m @wordsofwitte), which is where I ran across this article.
I used to have blog (wordsofwitte), which was an active account of my ramblings/photos/etc., covering any topic I chose. Now I just have a website where I focus on my writing endeavors (peterwittewrites.com). In any case, thanks for responding. And I’ll see you around the web!
I’m horrified by the thought of rereading my old diaries. I have some memories of specific passages and I assure you, they’re best left behind. Or burned. I have no desire to again experience all the torment and despair that sent me crying to my diary. You are a stronger (or braver?) woman than I… Though I’ll admit… you’ve got me curious..,
I too have some old journals that I read a few years back, and like you, I was really surprised at what was in them. I found them pretty laughable, but it’s so funny at the time how one tiny thing or event in your life can feel so monumental.
Yes! In hindsight things are always less “major” than we thought at the time. It would be nice to keep that perspective on the occasions that I get bent out of shape about something that always ends up being not a big deal later. It’s hard to step out of the moment when you’re in the moment.
Also, I was just thinking about this, but I wonder if I too had some things written in there about wanting to be a writer. Lol, I may have to go on a scavenger hunt and check. That would be interesting to see.
You have always wanted to be a writer-i remember you “helped me” write a speech for my moms 50th birthday party-and that was 12 years ago. So happy u are living the dream-and doing it well. You are a great mom and great writer.
This was a fabulous post, Nina. I loved it. I got goosebumps reading about the things that your subconscious wrote on paper, but that even you didn’t recognize as important. Wow. What great gems to discover later in life – and to find out you ARE living the dream. I am terrified to open my 8th grade through 10th grade journals. They are undoubtedly about my crushes and boyfriend and probably nothing more. Maybe some sour grapes about my basketball coach are peppered in as well, etc. I also have old college papers in the same storage box in the garage. Maybe it’s time to dive in?
BTW – hugely insightful post about unreliable narrators. Ate it up.
Thank you so much, Melissa! This was such a sweet comment. As a side note . . . it’s funny, I’m the OPPOSITE of a hoarder. I’m a purger, I guess. But I have every paper I ever wrote. Even the ones in Spanish. Most could and should get tossed, but there’s a smattering of fiction in there and personal essays too. Maybe I’ll go through that stuff on my maternity “leave” in the late fall.
Fantastic insight.
I remember filling the junior high and high school journals with analysis of a boyfriend’s every mannerism and word during a school day and the ideal length for my bangs, for the benefit of future reference. (As if…)
I wanted to be a “mommy nurse” in my oldest diary, written in purple ink and locked with a special key. I am now a full-time mom of three, one of whom has some major daily medical needs, so I guess that sort of counts. And I know I wrote later as sort of a pie-in-the-sky dream that I wanted to be a writer, but I was “too practical” to think it could ever happen. Now, I’m making time and space and have a real plan for writing to become a true occupation (thanks to those kids who forced me to leave the workforce.)
A circle to be sure. Really cool to think our young selves knew the true paths we should be on. Also makes me think we ought to try really hard to encourage our kids to listen to their inner voices.
Thanks for a great post!
Ha! Love the bit about the bangs and this whole comment. By the way, tried to click on the URL to visit your blog, but it didn’t work. Drop me a note about where I can find you!
I’ve still got a lot of those old journals. And old letters too. I recently wrote a novel based on the mysterious death of one of my real college boyfriends. I put the real letters in it. Kind of fun.
But oh, yes the angst! The weight obsession! (The diet industry has insured that every woman in the world has lived Bridget Jones Diary at some point.)
But my mom reminded me of something I told her once that I’m not sure I journaled about it. I said I never wanted kids, so I could be a writer and travel all over having adventures. I was eight.
That’s pretty much what I’ve done.
LOVE that you put in the real letters. Another person who commented mentioned that his mother saved all the letters he wrote while he was away in Vietnam. I have tons of letters from other people, but how cool would it be to have the ones you wrote? And how interesting you’re where you said you would be at eight!
BTW–I quoted you on my blog this week. Did I tell you that?
Nina,
Lovely post! I loved reading about your discoveries in going back to your journals. I’ve kept all of my journals, since the sixth grade (though I swear one is missing…). A while back, I did read through them, which started out fun and ended up painful as well. I was totally boy-obsessed, though they were not obsessed with me (ouch). I never mentioned much about writing, but I did save a few poems and stories I wrote in middle school and high school. Once in a while, I wonder if I should burn them, but I don’t think I could. Maybe that’s the writer in me: must save everything.
Okay, so I swear one of mine is missing too. I don’t have the one from summer after my sophomore year in college (which I spent in Arezzo, Italy), which must have been the notebook I used for the months before I left for Chile because that time is missing too. I’m so sad about it. And slightly worried.
I love this post. The name of my blog “Ramblings…” is taken directly from one of the three journals I kept while in college. One small difference. I was a twenty-nine year old freshman, and had two children when I moved into a Brooklyn apartment and began my new life as a single mother.
Now I am a grandmother and it is my time. Thankfully, the melodramatic, hypertensive phase of my life is long gone and I have begun to learn what it really means to me to be a “writer.” The old journals? I trashed many pages, culled out a sampling of my old poetry (I use for Poetry Wed.) and I am eternally grateful I got to get rid of much of it
Thank goodness you saved the poetry! I’m thinking I should throw out the notebooks . . . would hate my daughters to read the weight stuff. Don’t know if I can really get rid of the notebooks though after all these years .. .
Aw what a great post! I never kept journals, but in the pre-facebook age my friends and I had spiral notebooks where we’d write LENGTHY letters to each other and pass them around. Those must be horrific to read. I know some of my high school friends still have them.
You are so right about narrative perspective. These issues are coming up in my WIP and I’m not really sure how to handle them yet. You really have to get INSIDE the character, which if it’s your journal is easier because it’s YOU
Thanks for sharing!
Sara! Those notebooks would be a treasure! You have to get your hands on some . . . even for a good laugh.
I love the fact that you’re living your dream! It’s a good one. And I also really liked what you wrote about your poetry submission:
“I sent my poem to a poetry contest at The Missouri Review. I don’t at all expect to win, but it made me take my writing very seriously for a moment, and I loved that moment.”
It reminded me of things you’ve written on your blog/tweeted when you’ve had short stories published! Again, it’s wonderful that you’re living your dream!
Awww, thanks Julia. I think those tweets usually reflect my shock and delight that I AM living it. (though a novel would be nice)
How amazing, that you met your dream head on and are riding its wings today! And me, too, with the teen angst and boy love. I had a diary, and keep it stashed in the top of my closet. Anytime I need to get into the head of one of my YA MCs, down comes the diary, and all the old feelings come back fresh and raw. Then I’m ready to write.
That’s so great you can use your old stuff to help you with your characters. If I ever do YA (I constantly think about it), I’ll be very happy to have my teen stuff. It’s definitely authentic!
Very inspiring! And a lesson to us all. We should all go through out old journals. So much to learn, methinks.
Thanks for visiting my blog, and for connecting on Twitter, Nina!
**through OUR old journals…
And thank you for visiting and for following back!
Really enjoy Rose and Thorn by the way. I’m a lit mag fan.
I kept all my teenage/college thoughts on a livejournal. I closed it up last year right before I started my blog. Right now, the plan is to compile all the posts and comments into a huge document and print it out as my own private book.
I still read it occasionally and I always laugh at how ridiculous I was and how not terrible everything turned out to be.
Lisa! I forget how young you are. You are so ahead in the writing stuff. You’re going to be majorly famous and I’ll say “I knew her when.” I wish I started really diving into this stuff in my 20s. Instead I went to grad school to become an English teacher. Then I taught for three years. I enjoyed it, but I wish I’d written on the side before I had kids.
P-SHAW.
I can already see myself saying, “I wish I hadn’t dived into work so much in my twenties, and enjoyed time with my friends instead.”
So there’s two sides to every coin.
Oh my gosh, Nina. I have a TON of old journals, and my reaction to everything in life was very…melodramatic. (Also, I have an entire journal filled to the brim with pages expressing my adoration for a certain brown-eyed boy, who ended up marrying my cousin — I was their matron of honor and I now see him regularly at family gatherings. Talk about weird.) The dream I often wrote about back then had very little to do with writing. I just wanted to marry a super cute guy and have babies with him — 8 to be exact. Nowadays, I’m married to that super cute guy of my dreams, but having kids terrifies me. (And I will NOT have 8 of them.) I wanted to be the model housewife, who baked, crafted, kept a clean, well-decorated house — my dream, I guess you could say, was to be Martha Stewart, and I really thought I’d be happy with that. While I channel my inner Martha Stewart sometimes, I fear I can’t have the best of both worlds — being a mom AND a writer — and that terrifies me most of all. It’s amazing to me how selfless I wanted to be back then and how utterly selfish I am today. Anyway, I’m pretty sure I’ve already told you this before — hopefully someday I’ll also be able to tell you how misguided I was, and maybe I’ll even be able to say that I really can do it all!
Also — I wasn’t weight-obsessed at all then, but I sure as heck am now! Getting older sucks. =(
Ashley,
I have so much to say about this . . . some will come in the form of a post. You’ve inspired me. But suffice to say, it is so NOT selfish to want kids AND to want something that is still about you. Listen, I cook a ton and make sure the house is looked after and I’m dedicated to the kids (you know I’m having a fourth in the fall, right?). Anyway, the reason I’m able to do all that with a smile on my face is BECAUSE I also have my own thing going on with the writing. Otherwise I’m not sure I’d be so such a happy camper. I have to think about how else I want to articulate all this . . .
As a side note, it’s so great you’re getting started on the serious writing now though. I REALLY wish I had years of practice under my belt before I had kids. It IS possible to write and be a mother, but it requires less sleep and extra cash for a babysitter (at least in my case) and a very understanding and supportive partner (i.e. my husband who gets lots of kudos in my blog.)
What a wonderful post, Nina. I loved reading about you rediscovering the moment you started taking your writing seriously, and realizing that it was there much earlier in life than you thought. And I’m so happy for you when you say you’re living the dream, because there are so few people who can say that sincerely–it’s a treasure!
I have journals and diaries dating back to when I was five or six, but I started journaling consistently when I was 9, on a whim. I remember being at Burdine’s (a Florida department store that was purchased by Macy’s in the 90s) when a journal with cats on the cover caught my eye. I’m not even a cat person, but for some reason I begged my mom to buy it for me. As much as I cringe reading the entries (especially the ones during the teens years!) I enjoy it because it’s this strange experience of reading what feels like another person’s thoughts, and realizing they were once mine. I recently read what I wrote on Sept. 11 (I was a senior in high school) and how I felt like this huge bubble in my world had just burst. Much later, I wrote briefly about the first few months I met my husband, then quickly got caught up living and writing in computers instead of journals that I don’t have many more handwritten records.
But I’ve started journaling again, and it’s so satisfying. After reading your post I’m even more motivating to keep going with it.
Not so long ago I discovered a box filled with old letters and notes. It was in a small box in my garage that looked like it came from a different world. Ok, it didn’t look like it was alien technology but to me it was a different world because it contained “materials” from my high school and college days.
As I was sifting through it I discovered a host of items that I don’t want to be seen. It included a couple of pix an old girlfriend sent me. She is not naked, but she is modeling an outfit that she got for us. I don’t quite know how to explain to my kids why she took the pix or the captions.
And the letters, oh some of those letters are heartbreaking. I have to admit that I was torn about getting rid of some of these things but sometimes the past is best left in the past.
It is worth adding that I sometimes cringe reading old blog posts. Some are simply awful.
[...] at Nina Badzin’s blog, a look back at her old journals inspired a post about how we’re all unreliable narrators when it comes to memory. Perhaps even more interesting was the fact that Nina found hints of the [...]
What a great post! I had huge stacks of old journals from 4th grade through age 30. Around age 30 I burnt most of them. I had read through many of them and was just appalled by the whiny, ridiculous, overly dramatic person I was in all of them. I love your assessment of this kind of thing, where you said, “We assign blame, motive—much of it a product of our faulty and unfair analysis of the moment while we’re experiencing it.” So very true. I was boy crazy too. Also I think I may have had some kind of body dysmorphic disorder. Good Lord. Anyway, last weekend I found a small stack of journals that had survived the purge. I’m afraid to open them but I don’t want anyone else to read them. Ever. Although like you said about yours, anyone who could get through them would deserve a medal!
This is unrelated to your post but there is an Irresistably Sweet Blog Award going around. It’s a pay-it-forward kind of thing and I’ve put you on my list. http://www.lisalregan.com/blog/irresistably-sweet
I have early-married-life journals when I was working graveyard shift as a new RN and my husband traveled constantly – I attribute the lack of sleep and the fact we rarely saw each other to THIS-
(Should we buy a house or should we stay in this apartment? I miss him so much it hurts. I’m going to die if he doesn’t come home. We can save another year and buy a bigger one/have an actual yard. Am I pregnant? Because I can’t be pregnant. But if I was, it wouldn’t be terrible. My mom would be happy. She’s been asking when we were going to have a baby for a year now. I wonder if she needs me to bring sweet potato casserole this weekend. She can’t eat the pecans.)
I was even frustrated at one point b/c another girl and I liked the same baby name She didn’t use it and I had a boy. Ridiculous.
Oh I love it!!! Thanks so much for sharing that. So you can only imagine the drama in my teenage ones, right?
Hi Nina, and thanks for following my blog. I’m going to be moving my blog over to the ChicagoNow blog because I can’t be there and here at the same time…. so I will provide a link.
Thanks for your honest and refreshing blog and keep those challas coming and of course congrats and mazel tov on getting Freshly Pressed.
Hag Sameach!
Gail-Tzipporah ; )
Thanks for finding ME and getting in touch. The freshly pressed thing has been CRAZY. My mom is having a blast without though. I think I created a blogging monster. Nina
Stop by my blog: http://ninabadzin.com Follow me on Twitter: @NinaBadzin
I really enjoyed reading this excellent blog post. I completely related to much of it, as a former teenage journal writer. Once my mom read my journal, and I couldn’t even stand to look at it again after that. The horror!
Oh gosh, if I even THINK about the words in my journals through someone else’s eyes I feel sick. Horrible!!!
Stop by my blog: http://ninabadzin.com Follow me on Twitter: @NinaBadzin
Loved this! Just LOVED it!
I’ve been tempted to burn my old journals…
It can be VERY painful and embarrassing to see our old thoughts. I hope I don’t feel that way about the blog one day!
Stop by my blog: http://ninabadzin.com Follow me on Twitter: @NinaBadzin
I can’t believe I was wondering what to do with old journals and I found your great post! I have been a journal writer for 25 years and burned all of my journals back in 2002. They were for “My eyes only.” I had a very cathartic healing when I went through the process, but I started saving them again and the stack is growing. Also, last month my best friend gave me all of the letters and cards I had sent her since 1981 !!! I have self-published one book,” Embracing the Moment: An Alzheimer’s Memoir” which covers an 11 year illness about my mother and I wrote the book from my journals.
Now, I’m looking for a new project. I have all of these journals filled with so much life and all of these letters from 1981-2000 and what can I do with them??? I’m open to all ideas:)
What a gift to have those letters. I can’t even imagine receiving something like that. It’s funny-I’m not a hoarder AT ALL—quite the opposite—but I do have tons of letters from the 90s and early 2000s. Now that I’ve kept them this long I don’t want to toss them. I’m ALSO open to ideas!
I’ve had the same experience! Coincidentally, my years of journaling were also 8th grade- end of college (I wish I could still write privately with the same enjoyment that I used to, and often wonder why I cannot, but that is a different topic). I absolutely cringe at most of the stuff I wrote- it is basically ALL about boys (including ranking my top four crushes on the same date every month-yuck), and I also remembered myself as being much more studious and serious. But its also nice to see my progression as a writer and a person- I become progressively less loathsome in my entries as the years pass.
After re-reading all my diaries the summer after graduating from college, I thought, “Hey, I’ve already basically written a book here, why not turn it into an actual book but one that is way less horrifying to read?” So I re-wrote my high school story, 1st person, past tense, book-length. This is when I began digging up old e-mails and AIM conversations, and that’s when I really realized just how inaccurate my memories as well as my diary entries were. For example, I had written very mean, out-of-the-blue e-mails to a boyfriend from a relationship in which I’d remembered myself as always being the victim. It was just plain haunting to go through those documents, realizing how much I had sugar-coated in my diaries, which were already horrifying enough. It has made me question the accuracy of everything in my book and everything stored in my memory. But I’m so glad that I have these saved writing samples so that I can have the humbling experience of realizing just how selective my memory, like anyone’s, is. I think that’s an important lesson.
I love that you were able to uncover the true origins of your story as a writer that you had somehow suppressed. I had a similar eerie experience. I recently found an entry I wrote in 9th grade that said that someday I wanted to be a therapist, write on the side, and date a poet. All three have come true.
I’m so pleased you read this old post and that it made you reflect like this. Love that comment about you becoming less loathsome. I feel the same way about myself! (Thank goodness.)
Re: memory . . . that’s what “fiction” is for! But now I’m dying to know, what came of the manuscript??
Nothing so far except a zillion agent rejections. But writing it was adventure enough!
Nice post! Journals are great and a great way to look back and see if we have made any progress…or not! I liked your insight!
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