I Found Her Diary...

Jan's diary 1976

Women my age, remember having at least one Diary. Okay, maybe not all but, many of us. In the era before Internet, we had to express our inner most private feelings, and this very familiar book with a tiny lock, was the go to place for many of us. We told our Diaries of secret crushes, of what we dreamed of, and even boring little trivia stuff.

A few years ago, I discovered three of these little books I kept. I had a laugh then pitched them. I wrote stupid stuff mostly. What we had for dinner, what Julie & I watched on television. Pretty boring and never brave enough to truly write about feelings.
A few weeks ago, this one appeared. Just randomly in a box of old stuff. I set it aside, figuring I get to it later. It sat on my desk, unopened.
As you know, I lost my dear friend, Ron, recently. As we are picking up pieces and moving forward, I am amazed at how many little reminders I keep stumbling upon.
The day we laid my friend to rest, I came home and spotted this book. I thought now is a good time for some smiles. And popped open the little lock.

My Diary is dated January 1st, 1976. I am 13 years old, and in eighth grade. I talk about my first crush... a cute boy by the name of Ronnie Seats.
The friend, I just lost.

The Diary is written poorly. My grammar, spelling, and penmanship is horrible. But, I didn't really understand what you do with a Diary. I certainly was silly about what I decided to write.

Poor Ronnie... I chased him for four months. Pretty scary. Then I finally accepted friendship was better than nothing. The friendship lasted a lifetime. For that I am grateful.

When I read some of the weird stuff I wrote about, I wonder what was I thinking? Or more appropriately, thank God, I grew up!

Today's young girls have such a wider opportunity to express themselves. How cool would it be to have had a Video Diary much like the girl "Blossom", a 1990's sitcom character did. I tried to get my daughters interested in writing Diaries. Journals. Even wanted to get them video camera's to video their youth. They were too busy. Not writers.  They both take a ton of photos like their Momma. But they keep them logged in their Facebook mostly and I worry they will lose them one day. They both have many photographs and even scrapbooks from their youth, particularly high school.

For me, my Diary today is my Blogs.  I write about day to day as well as feelings and thoughts. Hopefully, I am not as boring as when I was thirteen.  Luckily, I paid attention in high school and my grammar and spelling has gotten better. (Also we have Spell Check to help).

I have had the song, "DIARY" from Bread in my head since starting this post. Remember it?

"I found her Diary underneath a tree,

and started reading about me..

the words she written took me by surprise,

you'd never read them in her eyes.."

click here for song:  YouTube Diary by Bread