Writing, for
myself, is a therapeutic tool.
Then again,
so is sitting and wool-gathering.
But when I
do that, I wish I’d brought a pen and pad along.
I've
forgotten some of the best prose I've ever dreamed up for lack of a writing
device.
I can never
remember those clever turns of phrase.
They’re a
one off.
My old phone
held hosts of audio notes. Ramblings I’d listen to later on and laugh at..
Scribbling down the droll quips in the process.. Deleting them to make room for
the next..
Back home I’ve
a large quantity of journals.
Housed in
safe keeping, a world away, in my pop’s spare bedroom along with the other few
things I’ve held onto…
I’ve written
essays, and plenty of pure drivel.
Philosophical
quandaries, delusions of grandeur, occasional rants..
Journals are an excellent place to expel the toxicity in one’s life.
Occasionally
one goes back to re-read the idiocies scribbled down..
Some
encounter with an ex, a disagreement with a sibling, memories, or infuriating
conversations, desires, and fantasies.
They’re
private, wild thoughts. Intimacies meant only for one’s self.
A cloistered
purge of words. Written and ensnared on the page, shackled in ink.
Where they
won’t haunt you anymore.
At least
until you've re-read them, musing as to how you could've been so foolish.
There are
few things more dangerous than reading another person’s diary.
What you
find held within is another version of the diarist.
A private
expulsion of all of those secret thoughts and deeds.
Real and
imagined.
Half-finished
thoughts or entries.
Full pages
of rants.
Scrawled
notes without context.
As someone
who keeps a journal, I have only once been tempted to read the
ramblings of another without permission.
It sat
there, on the table, in plain view after a disastrous weekend in the country.
I was,
admittedly inebriated, and tried to reason with myself.
Attempting
to absolve myself in advance for cracking the spine.
I couldn’t
bring myself to do it.
This gross
invasion of privacy and betrayal of trust that seemed so tempting to my addled
brain. I knew the
friendship was over anyway, so what was the harm?
I knew
better, though, the representation of a person on the page—is not a
representation of the writer, but of the thoughts that they grapple with.
I knew, also,
that I couldn’t keep it to myself.
There are good
reasons to keep secrets, but they are few in number.
I admittedly
have a handful, but, they tend to be the private sort.
Ones that
don’t affect anyone but myself.
Or those
kept on behalf of others. Things that do no harm.
Had I opened
even the first page, I knew I’d have to admit to it.
First to
myself, the sojourn I knew better than to embark on…
And messy aftermath of losing someone’s trust permanently.
Now, though,
we have blogs.
Online journals, shared without such concerns.
All written
with various motivations, with differing results, our private thoughts splashed
about the internet. Is it vanity that makes us choose to do so?
An idea that
what we have to say is important, perhaps?
I like to
pretend that no one reads this blog.
That mine is
hidden amongst the hundreds of thousands of blogs that populate this online
network.
Though I
know better, I still feel as if I am writing in my moleskine to myself.
Working out
a problem as I tap at the keys.
Letters, too—and
emails—provide an outlet.
But those
are written with the recipient in mind.
Private,
still, but a shared thought, fear, frustration or happiness intended only for
one other.
Much to the
dismay, I am sure, of the late, great Bobby Britain, I write the bulk of my
ramblings without an audience in mind.
This note,
however, is not one of them.
Sister mine,
Please
desist in the excavation of pages contained in chronicles left crated and dusty.
Those
thoughts are mine, and they were not written with distribution in mind.
You will not enjoy what you find within... Some things are, and should remain, private.
Yours truly,
The author
The above image has been borrowed from Notebook Stories, as my SD card, now unable to transmit data, has gasped her last breath in Africa.