One of my favorite things to do on a quiet morning out in the country is to get a cup of tea and sit down to write. I have been writing, journaling, keeping a diary on and off for most of my life. I remember writing as an adolescent, with all my angst, about my future, about boyfriends (or lack thereof), about Life, etc. I fell off the journal wagon in college. As an English major, I was too busy writing about Shakespeare, Yeats, Keats, Dickenson, Shelly, Fitzgerald. But I picked the habit back up again as an adult and continued spilling my ugly guts and fanciful aspirations down on pages and pages of journals. Sometimes on my own, and later, inspired by books like The Gifts of Imperfection, Simple Abundance and the fantastic The Artist’s Way. I now start my day every morning by journaling my thoughts. 

No, I was never a scrap booker. I bought the stuff, planned on doing it, wished I could do it, but never got around to being That Mom. A good friend of mine was That Mom. She and a couple of friends would go away once a year for a weekend and bring all their scrapbooking materials and update their children’s’ scrapbooks over wine and conversation. I did scribble a few things in my kids’ baby books. Quite anecdotes and things they would say. But nothing like show of devotion, let alone creativity.

My in-laws have had a home in Florida and so, for the past thirty years, I’ve been able to go there, sit on the beach and think and write great thoughts ... and a lot of drivel. On this most recent trip, I returned to gray Cleveland and discovered, to my horror, that I’d left my journal behind in sunny Florida on my father-in-law’s counter. “Oh, good God,” I thought. “Please don’t let anyone open that notebook up!” Sure, there’s plenty of blather about nothing in there, but frankly, there’s a lot of ugly in there, too. I imagined my father-in-law handing the book over to me, shaking his head and tsk tsking, “I thought I knew you. You are a dark, mean, self-absorbed bitch.” Or, depending on the page he might open, might just quip, “Go to the gym already. Stop writing about it. And no, you’re not fat.” My father-in-law’s helper found the notebook and I made her swear that she would handle it like toxic waste: dump it in a Fed Ex envelope and send it off to Cleveland. 

This brings up the basic conundrum with journaling. If I were to die tomorrow and my children went through my journals as a mother, they would be horrified. Because, unlike my friend who spent hours of recording how darling her children were, complete with flowery cut-outs and sprinkles on the page, my journals are a record of my frustrations, fears, anger and, yes, love for my kids, my husband, and our large, rambling families. If these stinking turds of writings were found and read, years of therapy would surely follow. I’m afraid my kids would all think they’ve been misled, that deep-down, I just hated everyone.

Of course, this is not at all the case. It’s just that I mind-dump into my journals: good, bad, ugly, saint, sinner ... all of it. I scribble on those pages all the best of me: my prayers for my kids, my celebrations of the beauty of Life, my thanksgiving for all my many, many blessings, memories of my parents, my kids, myself. But I also unload my fears, my self-doubt, my regrets, dashed hopes and what drives me crazy about, well, everyone. And I’m really working on being more thankful in my journals. Like so many experts advise, it really does lift me up when I do that. 

Still, I’ve gotta say. The prospect of my family reading through my journals terrifies me.

Which brings me to my mother’s diary. Somehow, I ended up with my mother’s sweet, leather-bound diary. It is so very her: starting in a flurry of entries, then tapering off to notes here and there. Hilariously, it looks like she made entries post-facto, because it is signed to her as a gift “from Marie” in 1941, but the entries date from 1939 to 1941. But Marge’s entries are revealing of her life at the time. I see her, at twenty-two, during the Great Depression, trying to get a decent job, beat out by a “college girl.” (This explains her lifelong sensitivity that, smart as she was, she never got to go to college because her family couldn’t afford it). “She is setting her hair. She is hanging out with her sisters: “Therese and I talked of eyes all night.” Or, “Back to work and hate it. Stayed home. Rita has an awful stomach ache.” She is going to Sunday mass and Friday Novenas.  She is helping her mother deal with her father, a binge alcoholic: “Stayed in with Mama, who had to take care of Dad ...”. And she is just meeting my father: “Jack and I to Euclid Beach. Swell time.” And, “Held hands with J. Conway, but wouldn’t let him kiss me.” “Parmadale for Reunion Picnic. Afterward dancing and I got feverishly mad ‘cause Jack didn’t dance with me ... he sure puzzles me at times.” 

It’s all very dear to read. I treasure it.

Recently, I had started to write all about Marge’s diary in more detail, wanting to share it with others. I quoted many more entries that were so typically Marge: passionate, bruising easily, loving, funny. I had a page-and-a-half of an essay all written out about it on a Word document. My daughter, Flora, had borrowed my computer to do something for work. The next day, I went to open my document and it was nowhere to be found. It was not in the Cloud; it was not in my files. I checked to see if I had written it in a google document, but no. It was nowhere. Flora swears she didn’t delete the document.

Perhaps my mother disapproves of my reading her diary, or at least writing about it for others to know. Perhaps Marge reached through from the other side and slyly pressed the delete button on my computer.

I hear you, Marge. I will let further intimacies of your thoughts lay hidden in the pages of your bedraggled, worn little diary. It will be our secret.

But still. Note to self: Burn those journals.