Do you cringe when you read your old diaries/journals and yearbook messages?

[lotsofpumpkins]

I have kept a journal since I graduated from high school. I used to write quite a bit, but the last couple of years I haven't written much anymore, since I have been writing a homeschool week-in-review each week (which includes much more than what we do for school). I occasionally look back in my journals to remember things about the children that might be helpful (like milestones, etc) but when I'm reading, I get this urge to put my new paper shredder to work. So much of what I wrote was related to unimportant things (like the type of cloth diapers I was going to spend too much money on...). Several times I complained about something dh did or said. And back when I used to work outside the home, I spent several months complaining about my job. I feel like I'm a totally different person than I was even a couple of years ago. I guess that's what life is supposed to be- constant growth. But I admit, if something were to happen to me, I don't want other people reading all these journals.

 

As for yearbooks, it's kind of weird to read the messages where my high school boyfriend wrote that he loved me. There's really only one person from high school that I still talk to, so the messages from everyone else don't really mean anything anymore. Would it be crazy to cut out the pictures that I'm in and toss the rest?

 

Can anyone relate to this, or am I just crazy? :tongue_smilie:

 

ETA: I'm doing it- the journals are being shredded! I'm taking a break right now because the shredder shut off to keep from overheating. In a few minutes I'll get back to work. I know that this is the right decision for me. All of the important stuff (like birth stories) is written elsewhere anyway.

Edited January 4, 2010 by lotsofpumpkins

[Corraleno]

I also have a big stack of journals, going back to about age 13. And yes, I cringe every time I read them! I'm always tempted to just burn them, but I'm hoping one day to be able to go through them and put together an edited version ("edited" in the sense of selecting just a few entries from each volume and maybe disguising a few names, not rewriting them). I think it will be helpful when my kids get to that age to (1) have something to remind me of what a twit *I* was when I was their age, and (2) maybe show my kids that I was once a kid, too, with the same dreams and fears and angst.

 

But every time I have one of those slam-on-the-brakes, adrenalin-pumping, OMG-I'm-gonna-die experiences, I blush at the thought of anyone reading the unedited versions! :tongue_smilie:

 

Jackie

[hsmom3tn]

YES!!!

 

Totally different person now than I was back then. I don't even want to run into or talk to people that I went to school with. :001_huh:

[PinkInTheBlue]

My mother has made me promise that when she dies that I will burn her journals. No problem with me. I don't want to read them. That's very private stuff and I don't really want to know her THAT well. :) Personally, that's why I just couldn't keep them. If it's therapeutic then I would likely throw them away as I filled them. Since, yes, school yearbooks make me cringe, I definitely wouldn't want old journal stuff. Too weird to read myself sounding so dumb. LOL :)

[lotsofpumpkins]

I'm glad to hear I'm not alone here... :)

[Nakia]

I don't journal and never have, but I love to read old high school yearbook messages. It gives me a warm fuzzy feeling to remember those silly times. I don't keep up with many people from high school except on facebook, but it is still fun, to me, to read those things. Maybe I am weird. :D

[lovemyboys]

I did destroy the one little red locked diary from high school when I was in my mid-20s. I read through it and found nothing of value.

 

The journals that I've kept as an adult do have blush-worthy moments, but they chronicle my life. Every once in a long while I'll flip through them, I figure I'll reread them when I'm in my 70s for a laugh and maybe a little insight. Now that dc are getting older maybe I should look at them again. I've saved dh's love letters too. hmmm.

[lovemyboys]

My mother has made me promise that when she dies that I will burn her journals. No problem with me. I don't want to read them. That's very private stuff and I don't really want to know her THAT well. :) Personally, that's why I just couldn't keep them. If it's therapeutic then I would likely throw them away as I filled them. Since, yes, school yearbooks make me cringe, I definitely wouldn't want old journal stuff. Too weird to read myself sounding so dumb. LOL :)

 

My sister got such a kick reading my dad's college yearbooks with all the nicknames and memories.

 

My brother otoh may not want to have anyone perusing his....

[lotsofpumpkins]

I think this is why I enjoy the week-in-review journaling much better. I'm already writing that for others to read (I email it to a few friends and family each week). I also print it out and keep it for myself (and I do re-read them quite often). But there's no cringing (well, maybe a little, over how many times I switched up math last year...), so I'm happy to keep those "journals" (actually binders) around for many years to come. I'd like to think that my children will enjoy reading them someday, especially since there are lots of pictures! My old journals were written to be private, so it's a scary thought that someone else might read them.

 

Maybe this is why blogging is so popular? Sort of like a journal but already "edited" for others to read it.

[Kirch]

Yearbook entries get more eye-rolling than anything else. I don't get the urge to burn or destroy old journals (haven't kept one in years, though), but I'm also not really interested in reading them. I know for me it was more for therapy at the time than for recording my thoughts for posterity.

 

I also read The Diary of Anne Frank early in middle school, so by the time I started journaling, I think there was always the thought in the back of my mind that someone else might read it someday. I wasn't as . . . transparent as I might have otherwise been.

[orangearrow]

I threw all mine away. Without shredding them, which I really regret. :bored: But - I just tossed them one day when I saw my dh browsing through one of them and nearly died of embarrassment (don't even know what he read, but knew I didn't want him reading my so-so-silly, self-important, melodramatic mumbo jumbo).

 

Haven't regretted it for a minute. My mom and grandma have recently given me boxes of old letters, etc - and I shredded all of those.

[keptwoman]

I threw all mine away. Without shredding them, which I really regret.

Me too. Someone might have dug them out and read them :eek: Didn't have a shredder sadly. But I should have burnt them!

[lotsofpumpkins]

Mine are all gone now! :hurray: I filled a whole kitchen trash bag with the shredded remains of 15 years' journals. As I was shredding, I read a bit, and it only confirmed my decision. I told dh if something happens to me, don't go looking for the journals to read, because they are GONE! :D

[keptwoman]

Yay! Good work.

[Rosie_0801]

If I was the type to journal, I'd leave mine to the State Library. Historians do some great work with old diaries, even the stuff that seems the most dull :) One of my lecturers wrote on women and gardening from some old diaries she found in the library, and one of her colleagues wrote used another diary in her work on the domestic revolution. This woman's diary was list after list of meals she cooked and other chores completed.

 

Rosie

[LibraryLover]

My grandmother kept date books. She wrote down things like "Today we went to lunch with the grandchildren. The little boy as in a good mood, but the baby was very cranky. I think she was teething. They had chicken noodle soup and I had corn chowder. When we were leaving, we bumped into cousin Jane and she told us she was having a baby in June!"

 

Or, "we went to visit Laurie's family today and the baby was asleep in the moses basket when we arrived. He look so cute in his blue sleeper. Laurie looked really tired but was happy to see us. We brought her some baby wipes I got on sale, and a cup of Dunkin Donuts coffee. Joe made the oldest boy a hat from newspapers while the baby was sleeping. He liked that".

 

That's it. Day after day year after year. Who she saw, what they had for lunch, how much she spent on groceries. Whether she ate a corn muffin or a blueberry muffin on Tuesday. I love them. I read them often. If she had burned them I would not have known about them, but having them makes all the difference. She wrote down things I had completely forgotten about.

[keptwoman]

Your grandmothers diaries would be a treasure Laurie!

 

Sadly my teen diaries contained much angst over the latest boy and that was pretty much it. Shallow....Oh my that doesn't begin to describe the pitifulness of them!

[stripe]

Ditto. Alas, mine were mostly not about what I ate (although I did find one that praised my aunt's cooking -- I emailed her a quote!) but about problems with friends. I found a priceless letter from a former friend with much emotional drama. I had to throw it out; it seriously was too annoying to keep around. But I did show my husband that, yes, my high school friends were every bit as melodramatic as I'd said.

[grace'smom]

I kept journals all through high school. I threw them all out when I met my husband. I read through some of them and was ashamed at how ridiculous I was, and I didn't feel like it was right to keep mementos and descriptions of old boyfriends, etc. I wanted to put my old life behind me and start again, and have my husband be the only man in my life. I didn't want even written memories to come between us. In truth, I wanted to erase every man I had ever met but him, but I know that every failed relationship I had only led me to understand more deeply how wonderful he is when I met him.

[lotsofpumpkins]

Yep, mine were way too shallow to save for my children/grandchildren.

 

But like I said, the new homeschool week-in-review journaling I've been doing for the last couple of years is definitely worthy of being saved, and contains a lot more than just school. I talk about our garden and trips we take and the children's birthdays and stuff like that.