Keeping a detailed account of one’s life–whether the writing is meant for the writer’s eyes only, posted on a blog for all to see, or shared with a select few–is a common practice. Do you take part in it? Do you write for an audience or just yourself? Why? Have you become more–or less–active in chronicling your life and times as you get older?
In “Burning the Diaries,” Dominique Browning writes about doing just that. She also reflects on the role keeping a diary has played in her life:
I started keeping journals when I was 14. I was compulsive about it. I scribbled daily — and as I went through college, I filled hundreds of pages with dense, colorful ink, going right to the edge, ignoring the light threads of red margin markers, denying paragraphs their breaks, my nib flattening under the pressure of the stream of soul pouring forth. A psychiatrist once told me that I was obviously trying to psychoanalyze myself, which, professionally speaking, is considered impossible. But there certainly was — and has always been — a form of therapy in keeping journals. It is a way of self-soothing, as an adult, a way of rubbing the satin corner of your blankie against your finger when you’re anxious about separation, or too worked up to fall asleep.
… I wrote about the bad boyfriends, the mean girls, the lying and cheating knaves I loved. I wrote about the wrenching pain of postpartum depression, the confusion and fear of becoming a mother, when I didn’t have a clue how to do that gracefully, kindly, compassionately; I mulled over the unalloyed sadness of a dying marriage and the pure misery of mourning the passing of a hope that, before it fled, sowed the seeds of two beautiful boys. Certainly not the sort of detritus I wanted those boys to sift through if I died before I woke.
… I write memoirs. And I write about my life in a blog. But as I’m constantly saying to people who wonder how I can reveal so much about myself (especially as, at heart, I am a shy person), I’m not publishing my diaries. I’m not revealing so very much, when I write, that isn’t in all of us. It is kind of like the old saw about having it all. Readers never get it all. They get some of all of it. Everything I write is true. But I don’t write about everything true. I shape, I cut, I feint and dodge; I want to get to something that is uniquely mine, and at the same time ours, too.
Students: Tell us whether you identify with Ms. Browning’s description of writing a personal account of her days. If you write or blog about your life, why do you do it? Does writing help you? If so, how? Do you protect your writing from others, or do you want people to read it? Has your personal writing ever caused you trouble with other people?
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Teachers: Here are 10 Personal Writing Ideas.
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