So I skimmed just a few more, finished my wine and then began to shred them with vigor — excitement almost. I was ripping through pages of a life that was no longer mine. I was putting to rest that part of my journey and closing the door on one of my deepest emotional winters. Gratitude rushed into my heart and I quietly thanked God for bringing me through. Before embracing minimalism the thought of destroying my journals seemed unfathomable. So much personal content. Those journals were some of the most personal items I owned.
Sentimental can also mean sad times, painful memories, regrets, guilt, and shame. This is the type of sentimental stuff that is no longer serving you positively in your life today.
I was also relieved that I had a chance to personally destroy these journals before they were ever read by anyone else. If I died suddenly and my family was left to comb through those things, to read those insights, what reminders would they be left with? Sun, Aug 07 , am I wasn't so frum when I was a teenager and most of my journals are about the latest boy I was interested in dating. But a lot of my journal describes how it was for me to grow up and come to Israel and about Israel years ago, and fun things about tiyulim I have done.
My kids teens can read English - what would you do? Not sure I am ready to destroy everything because of all the good stuff in it but definately don't want my kids to stumble thru this. Back to top. Sun, Aug 07 , am Type the best and the most kosher part of it in and save it that way in the computer? It would be such a pity to lose it all, but keep it all is a pity as well.
Sun, Aug 07 , am I destroyed all of mine when I was in high school and discovered that my mom had read them, and then used what she read against me.
Never had another one since then. Sun, Aug 07 , am I'm keeping mine for now - to help me remember what it was like to be a teenager. Is there a really safe place where you can keep it? I still write a diary occassionally, to let out my frustration, but I have less patience to write and I am much more selective about what I record.
Sun, Aug 07 , am I kept a journal from when when I was in 5th grade until shortly before I got married. I finally got rid of them a few years ago when I realized that there were things written in there that I wouldn't want other people to read, plus the fact that they filled an entire box which was a ridiculous waste of space. Every once in a while I regret throwing them out because of all of the memories that are now lost.
I sort of wish I had gone through them and pulled out some pages to keep, but usually I'm glad that they no longer exist. Sun, Aug 07 , am I keep and hide, but when I come across anything really embarrassing to self or others I tear it out. Sun, Aug 07 , am After breaking up with a bf I destroyed every shred of anything connected to that relationship from diaries to photos to teddy bears. Before my kids learned how to read I destroyed the diary I kept when dh and I were dating.
Neither cathartic nor cleansing,a little painful, in fact, but necessary. Even if they never found it till I was six feet under, some things are just too personal to see the light of day.
Sun, Aug 07 , am My diaries from 7th grade til 2 yrs after I got married are still intact and hidden in my armoire. I am saving them for the eventual autobiography I plan to write for my children :-D. I had a comprehensive diary I kept about my infertility journey which sadly got lost when the floppy disk I saved it on got corrupted What gets saved gets studied and incorporated into scholarly knowledge.
What gets lost or destroyed leaves a gap in the historical record that can be irrecoverable — and that can result in distorted or incomplete understandings of the past. Ordinary people are the ones whose lives go undocumented.
Historians and literary critics are acutely aware of this issue and actively seek out and revere the life stories of ordinary people because they provide a corrective, an invaluable insight that re-balances our perspective on the past.
My first two points imagine a specific future reader: a descendant or a scholar. Who knows what the future holds? On particularly dark days, I think about all the threats to survival on this planet and I wonder what will end up being the last surviving evidence of human culture on Earth.
Maybe some alien life in a very distant future will pour over your diary and learn something of what it was like to be a human living now, in this time and place. And maybe that will be significant in ways that far exceed our understanding. Common arguments for destroying personal writing, and why they are unconvincing. So, accepting that your diary is silly — that maybe there are one too many entries detailing the physical attributes of a new lover, or dwelling on how sad you are, or recounting fights in your high school clique that seemed urgently important at the time — does that still mean you should destroy it?
What looks silly or childish or solipsistic to you now may be a delight to you in the future — and may be equally delightful to a future reader. It may be tempting to retroactively edit yourself and cover over those less-than-exceptional moments, but in doing so you deny a truth about yourself.
My diary is shameful. This is information that no one would benefit from knowing. But, consider this: you wrote about it. The impulse to record was sufficient to overcome your embarrassment. Surely that tells you something? Surely that suggests that it was important enough to you to deserve to be included in your life narrative?
And, you can control who reads it. I wrote it for myself. Keeping a diary or journaling was always just for me, a way to process my experiences and work through my thoughts.
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