Eve of destruction

I've kept diaries for decades. Different ones from different time periods, and on different subjects. Lately I've been getting the urge to throw them out. Not entirely sure why...like a sort of shedding of my past self, maybe? I think I will do it, but I worry I will regret it.

14 Comments

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good dog

Feb 26, 2021 at 5:26am

go for it

4 3Rating: +1

Instead of throwing them out

Feb 26, 2021 at 7:06am

Bury them somewhere safe -like out in the woods, not near the city where a building might get built on the spot where you buried them. That way either you can dig them up in the future if you want them back or someone in the distant future can find them and learn somethings about those decades.

5 2Rating: +3

Scratch and sniff

Feb 26, 2021 at 7:42am

I have also been having that same itch. I have a stack of journals from my pre-teens right into my 30s. I mostly want to burn the ones from my late 20s and present time. Pages filled with a lot of anxiety and depression. .

Keep some, burn the rest. Might give you a release you've been looking for. I'm already looking forward to burning my current journal.

Happy Burning, friend!

4 3Rating: +1

I couldn't do it

Feb 26, 2021 at 8:04am

I just heard the same from a friend who is about to burn their diaries from childhood onward. I'm trying to get my head around the purpose of it. Those things are so precious to me. I don't have space, so I've digitized a lot of stuff. I love reading historical journals, and I want to leave stories behind as well. My grandfather's journal is amazing, makes me wonder why I exist at all, given what people went through. Now it's a historical piece that's been read by the family over and over, and by others interested in a personal, first hand account of events.

6 2Rating: +4

don’t do it

Feb 26, 2021 at 8:51am

Take it from Patti Smith:
box them up and one day, way down the road,
you’ll be glad you kept them.

12 3Rating: +9

Don’t do it!

Feb 26, 2021 at 12:33pm

I just found an old diary of mine last night with a list of everyone I’d had sex with up to a certain point. It was so funny because I’d forgotten a few so it was worth a good laugh.

9 2Rating: +7

Anonymous

Feb 26, 2021 at 2:12pm

Don't burn them! Overcome your embarrassment / shame / negative feelings about your past. In your future, when your memory gets hazier, you will really be grateful for that information. I also think it's important that there be accounts of everyday life by ordinary people for history's sake.. I love reading historical diaries, and people in the future - maybe your descendants, will enjoy them, too.

9 4Rating: +5

Get rid of them

Feb 26, 2021 at 8:02pm

No need to hang onto the past!

2 3Rating: -1

Anonymous

Feb 26, 2021 at 10:35pm

Nice you have privacy.
My ex read all my priviate notebooks.
What a prick huh.
Then said mean shit about what I wrote.
Thats why hes called Ex.

2 2Rating: 0

Shame the way

Feb 27, 2021 at 12:02am

People get bogged down by particulars in their story. If you just pull back I'm sure you'll see more to like about yourself

4 2Rating: +2

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