Dear Diary…

Many, many years ago, when I was a senior in high school (and it is truly many, many years ago), my AP English teacher assigned us a daily diary. Every day we were expected to write something in our diaries and she would periodically collect them. Now, this was a lot of work for her as well as for us since she had to spend time reading all of these diaries.. Or maybe it was her way to save money since she didn’t have time to read anything else. After all, who needs fiction when you have teenage diaries, right?

Believe me, we didn’t write anything personal in them though. And sometimes, as I’m sure you can imagine, it was extremely difficult coming up with something to write that was more than just a simple summary of how the day went. I found it particularly difficult because I’ve really never been one to share my thoughts and feelings and I’ve always been very sensitive about letting people read things I’ve written. I won’t even let anyone read the things I’ve written for my blog before I publish them, which is silly really since they’re going to be public in a short period of time. But, sentiments don’t always follow logic.

Despite the initial difficulties, as time went on it became increasingly easier to find something to write about. Those diaries held observations about life, crazy ideas, silly poems and even some funny tongue-in-cheek entries. I have no idea whatever happened to them, but I’m sure it would be hilarious reading them again. Unfortunately, they probably were left behind in my last move. Going overseas means taking nothing but the bare essentials.

When we graduated our teacher extracted a promise from us to continue with our journals but, as you can probably imagine, it wasn’t long before that habit fell by the wayside. It was hard to keep up at college and once a habit is broken, it’s difficult to start up again. (Except for maybe cigarette smoking since I know many people who keep quitting and going back to it.)

I read the diaries through a couple of times throughout the years. It was amazing how in the beginning the entries were rather dull and lackluster, but by the end of the year they became much more interesting, my writing flowed better and the entries called out to be read.

Oh, if I could only recapture that ..not the awkward adolescent/teenage years from hell, thank you very much, just the ability to write with style and flair.

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