![]() ![]() This idea can too be found in the common phrase ‘dear diary’, which seems to present diary-writing as some epistolary feat, a collection of letters compiled and never sent. In writing those questions, I seem to have been attempting to define my experiences against those of someone else, whether it be a reader or some figment of my childhood imagination, and, even though I kept that journal locked, I seem to have been consciously trying to engage with whoever I thought would be reading it. I’ve since grown up, and my spelling has (hopefully) improved, but I’m still interested in those first few journal entries. It seems to me now that they exemplify what’s so important about diary-writing as a concept: it’s not only a tool of self-reflection, but also one of self-identification a way in which to construct a version of yourself on paper. Do you have a cat?’), yet I find it so fascinating that, in writing a diary for the first time, I tried to create some sort of dialogue. DEAR DIARY HOW TOWith no preconceived notions of how to write a journal, nor really how to write outside of school at all, I started to ask rhetorical questions in my diary to some unknown reader. These questions may be trivial (e.g. I had reaty good fun.’ Hardly the prolific writings of a child genius, is it?īut further down, however, I do find something which genuinely interests me in the entry for the day after my birthday. On my shelf in my bedroom at home, covered in dust and the long-abandoned remains of spiders’ webs, I still have every journal which I’ve ever kept, including the first one that I received on my birthday nearly fourteen years ago. Taking it down, and prying open the first page (lock and key now long-gone), I find pages and pages of scrawled writing and drawings, dates and numbers which now hold no meaning for me, and my first entry which reads, in its totality, ‘I was six today. I’m not sure what it was, but something in me at the time was fascinated by the idea of a secret journal the thought of being able to write down anything I wanted, and lock it away from the prying eyes of my parents and younger brothers thrilled me. Since that day, I’ve kept diaries regularly, noting down the comings and goings of my day, teenage crushes, and occasionally writing at length about my ponderings on life and death, as best as a girl in her early teenage years can. The journal was my favourite present that birthday, far superior to the various toys and games which I received from my family. I have a distinct memory of unwrapping a pink, glittery secret journal, complete with lock and key, on my sixth birthday. ![]()
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