Reading Diaries

My first diary was given to me by my best friend Marie, in sixth grade. It was white and had a small key to go with it. The first entry is on March 10th, 1966. It was the day my father died from cancer. I was twelve. We gave each other diaries for the next six years and I wrote each day.

In college I started to write journals. I kept them all and when I left for this adventure I put all the diaries and all the journals I could find and threw them on the floor of the back seat of my car. I think there were over 20 of them. I had decided I would read them all- start to finish and as I finished one I would remove pages I wanted to keep or copy items into my new journal and then I would throw out the old one.

Yesterday I finished reading them all. My life story from12 to 53 is now scattered in dumpsters from Oregon to Arizona and if feels good. I have let go of the past without regret.

It was fascinating to see in the early years what I wrote down. The diaries are filled with facts about when I got up, what we had for dinner and the fretting of a young teenager – what boys I liked and who I hoped liked me, what girls I fighting with as friends and the annoyance of getting along with parents. So much wasn’t there though. Reading would remind me of other events – some in the family and some in the world – but there was not one mention of them.

In high school I wrote about grades and boys and why I didn’t feel part of the ‘in’ group. I had my first serious boyfriend starting my junior year and page after page I proclaimed my love for him. Still a lot of family difficulties that I know happened during those years are not mentioned – was it not safe to write about or did I just want to avoid looking at those things?

There are journals filled with prayers and lists of vision statements and goals. There are pages of career wonderings and trying to figure out relationships. There is not much about the outside world – just the inside of Libbie. So much of it, I found boring now.

Could it be that now I just want to be with life and not analysis it? Trying to figure things out all these years doesn’t seem to have been all that useful. I was trying to ‘do’ life and not much ‘be’ in my life.

After college the journals get spotty. I write for a while and then stop. I enjoyed reading about the months before I got pregnant with my daughter as well as the pregnancy and first year of her life. Too often though, the journals are filled with whining and sadness and complaint. I guess I only wrote when life wasn’t feeling good.

In the diary when I was 16 I wrote out list of things to do. Number 19 was “ Don’t look for the hidden meaning in everything”. I laughed out loud. I have been doing that my whole life! I still do it. Reading the journals was an exercise in finding the hidden meaning in these past 53 years. What did I find? I am a sensitive seeker of life. I am now ready to experience the deeper, hidden meaning of life rather than wonder and fuss about it.

I wrote a new number 19 in my new journal. It says: Be open to living the deeper meaning of life. That’s what I am doing!