Dear Diary

Recently my mother insisted that my sister and I come over for a clear out. So much of our old junk from when we were growing up is still being stored at our parent’s house in the attic and in our old bedrooms and every now and then we make a half-hearted effort to go through it all. It’s a task worthy of a Greek legend though since we only ever seem to scratch the surface of it all and the pile of old toys, books and keepsakes never gets any smaller. It doesn’t help that it’s very difficult not to get distracted by memories and once the photograph chest gets opened it’s a lost cause.

This last time was no different and so just as I was thinking about getting to the pile of college life drawings under my bed my sister emerged from her own pile of stuff with a small red case in her hand. I recognised it straight away as the case I kept my earliest diaries in. From the age of sixteen I kept a pretty detailed journal. For these early ones I used the old school copy books. A glance at any of the pages would put you in mind of what you might find in a serial killer’s private collection: small writing crammed tightly along every line. In my memory these pages were filled with deep insights into the mind of my younger self; heavy thoughts well-articulated and intelligent beyond my years. As I stood there reading my entries the reality didn’t quite measure up with the memory. Instead I found page after page of such gems as:

Translation of swirly teenage girl writing:
“Keith keeps threatening to tell everyone about my supposedly belching while we were getting off (for any American readers this is Irish teenage-speak for snogging). I was sick and he isn’t exactly brilliant to get off with so it’s no wonder my stomach made a very unsatisfactory but quite quiet noise. Still it’s embarressing.”

Hmmm, charming.

I kept this diary until very recently although for some reason I took a break for the three years I was in college. I guess I was too busy sitting in Bewleys sharing one cup of hot chocolate amongst five of us and talking rubbish to write it down. I’m very glad I was such an obsessive about it though since so much of what I’m reading I had completely forgotten about. Whole chapters of my life and so many people who had disappeared from my memory. I’ve always said that I still feel exactly as I did when I was seventeen but I realise that that’s not true. Sure, there are similarities, but the person that wrote those diaries and the person reading them today are very different people. I’m quite embarrassed by a lot of what I thought and said, particularly when I would go off on the typical teenage rants about my parents, or when I read about some of the things I thought I wanted:

I believe these eighties nightmares were dress designs I wanted for my debs! Anne Frank eat your heart out.

I kept a diary up until I started this blog. It had become very sporadic as Eve was young and by the day’s end I was too exhausted to think let alone write anything coherent. I may have to start again or so many things will be forgotten but this time I won’t have anything to remind me twenty years from now. Or perhaps that’s not such a bad thing.