I’ve been dipping into my past.
Confession time: I’m a journaler.
That green diary on top was the first one, which seems to have been a 16th-birthday present; I wrote in it off and on for six and a half years. Today I ripped it apart and scanned it into the digital archive, where thanks to the miracle of software I can now open it in a bigger-than-life PDF file on my glorious ultrawide monitor and … actually read it, if I so choose.
I’m planning to, actually. The years covered by this diary were the years in which I finished high school, finished college, started graduate school, and moved away from home (first to a college apartment in the town where my parents worked, and then Actually Away to Atlanta).
These were the years in which I began and ended every romantic / sexual relationship in my life, up to the guy I was with when I met the man who would become my husband. Oh yes, and during these years I also got my first full-time job (where I met the guy immediately preceding my husband). This is a big book.
I’ve also scanned the journal that covered graduate school and moving to California. Those years weren’t as formative, however, and my romantic / sexual life wasn’t terribly interesting (sorry, guy immediately preceding my husband).
Since then, my journals have mostly been about what I’m reading. During our courtship and early marriage, I was too busy having adventures (and dancing) to write much; now that our dance life is on possibly-permanent pause, I’m writing fiction.
Why even re-visit these? What kind of navel-gazing bullshit is that?
Well, it’s the whole digitizing thing. I’m a serial declutterer (which is good, because I’m also by nature an acquisitive magpie squirrel monkey). After many rounds of getting rid of stuff that no longer sparks joy (ha!), I’ve made it down to things like a stack of journals.
There is no scenario in which the person cleaning up after I die wants to sit down and read these. There are other ways to use the physical space they’ve occupied. Might as well put them in a format where I can comfortably read them.
Because I’ve forgotten a lot, and who knows: somewhere in this archive may be the seed of another novel.