Please read my diary, look through my things and figure me out.
Kurt Cobain
I was sitting in a hospital waiting room. My friend, who I’ve known for over 35 years, had an appointment and she was nervous about going alone. As we people watched and clock watched, we started discussing our lives since we’ve known each other. St Trinian detention times at school, hilarious memories of classmates bunking off and then we discussed our parents and grandparents lives.
My friend found a diary of her recently deceased mother, that was written when her mum was going through an illness. It was a fascinating read, she said, an insight into her mother’s mind and fears and worries. I told her how I kept a diary when I had my postnatal depression after my son was born. I wrote it from day one through all the tears, the treatment, my dark thoughts on how hard it was for me to “be” a mother when my role model for a mother was not one to aspire to nor her grandmother skills, feelings of suppressed grief over my father who had passed away 3 years prior and then the ultimate decline of my marriage. It’s all there in black and white on sheets of A4.
I asked my friend if she’d ever kept a diary and she admitted that she had for years as a child but regrettably threw away her diaries years ago in a fit of de-cluttering. I said I had kept most of mine in the attic, dusty boxes of diaries from the 80s as a growing teen! We wondered if our sons might be interested to read our diaries when we have gone, to find out who their mothers were, how our minds worked, our experiences in life, our traumas etc. I told her about a writing course I was doing on therapeutic journaling and how deep and cathartic yet triggering it was. I am all about getting the pain out, ripping off the plaster and treating the wounds but it’s very difficult at times.
We then resumed silently people watching again before I broke our contemplation, “It’s amazing isn’t it, that every single person in this room has had traumas, deaths, births, losses, life changing experiences…and we have no idea from the clothes they wear or their body language. That’s what I love about people.” My friend agreed how we should never try to judge by the “front cover” but to find out what’s inside first. There were a couple of people we’d have loved to delve into…both men turned out to be doctors though!
“Probably married….or gay” we both agreed but then laughed as we hypocritically judged them from their swinging lanyards!
I wondered if the perception of me would change if or when my son reads my diaries. He’d probably be mortified at me writing about falling in love with George Michael as a 12yr old or he might be extremely upset about how I fantasised about killing myself during my postnatal depression. But it’s a part of me, my psyche at the time, my history. I got through it with therapy and meditation and support from some amazing friends who I am indebted to. I want him to see though how people are survivors, how we can get through anything if we have to and that there’s always light.
I’d love to know if you have or do keep a diary and how you feel about your loved ones reading it after you’ve gone? What secrets do you think they’d find out?
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