The Diary…

I keep a diary. I have kept one for most of my life. As a child it was on paper, in books, all around my room, hidden from the prying eyes of my parents, whom I never doubted would invade my privacy at the drop of a hat. Looking back on it, they probably didn’t care.

Once, in primary school, I used to bring it to school. I was seven years old and I had just recently changed schools. Some days no one talked to me. I was okay with that. I didn’t need them, didn’t need anyone. When I was writing, I ignored everyone around me. I liked looking busy. My classmates didn’t like me looking busy. They wanted me to want them, to need them like they needed each other.

One day they went into my bookbag and took it. I don’t specifically remember writing anything bad about them, but I suppose I had. They carried it to the teacher, and then the principal. I got into trouble. They didn’t get into trouble for going into my bag. I never understood that. I remember my principal asking me why I had said those things about them. I told her, meeting her gaze evenly,  “Because they weren’t supposed to read it.”

I learned something about adults that day. Even if you don’t feel remorse, fake it. Fake it till you make it. Fake it till you actually almost believe it yourself. If that doesn’t work, cry.

I learned something about words that day too. They should be protected. From then on, people — friends, enemies, teachers, boys (especially boys!) — had secret names, or initials, or something to hide their true identities. I had become a paranoid child. I suppose I have not changed.

Now, my diary is on my laptop. I started this one a week after I moved here to do my degree. I don’t write it in every day, sometimes weeks and months go by without a word, sometimes a week will have more than seven entries.

I don’t write it to a secret non-existent friend. I don’t say “Dear Diary”. I don’t say Dear anyone.

I write it to myself.

…Or to the other me, perhaps. The logical, sane one that will hold all my crazy thoughts and keep them private, keep them from spilling out into the world around me and poisoning everything.

It is password-protected, currently 568 pages long, and contains everything that’s affected me for the last three years.

…I am afraid to read it.

|xSx| – 18/4/08