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Before there was this blog there was a little thing called a paper Diary, I'm sure everyone used to also write in these things.  I have no clue if anyone still does.  Also, no one was meant to read them.

"If you read someone else's diary, you get what you deserve."  -David Sedaris

Dragging out the Halloween decorations this week lead me to open a box full of old diaries.  In the photo up there is years 1993-2002.   My first diary was the turquoise one in the middle and it had a sticker of Aladdan on it, a real key lock, a kitten bookmark that says "you are special" and an O-Pee-Chee baseball card of Duane Ward.  

Also the first 10-15 pages are ripped out because I didn't like my handwriting enough for a 'first diary entry', even though I used pencil I couldn't erase it good enough.  I finally settled on what I wrote (and erased re-wrote) because I wasted too many pages already.  It was only a quote from the diary of Anne Frank... a much more famous story than mine!

This perfectionist, book and baseball-loving kid liked watching Arsenio, writing short stories with my friends and having sleepovers.  Oh and figuring out my chances with Frodo Baggins.  

I'm 30 years old now but even still.. posting this is almost unbearably embarrassing.  66% love is HARDLY PROMISING, YOUNG ANN-MARIE!  Elijah Wood doesn't read the internet does he??

If I didn't find it so funny I likely would keep this to my own musings, but, it's all history isn't it?  It's all a little bit of everything that ever was.  It's what storytelling is all about. It caused me to wonder what exactly changes when we finish a book full of nothing but thoughts?  The story isn't over but the thoughts, in ink or type, you own them; could you (would you) throw it in a box?  Yes I would in a box and I would with a fox, and on a train, and in the rain.  Yadda yadda, uh .. I have repeated too many Dr. Seuss stories to my kids.

Ahem.

If history often repeats itself it is good to refresh yourself on the narrative once in a while.  We spend so much time in life being uncertain, impetuous, brightly naive... I enjoyed reading in that voice for a change.  If we can talk to ourselves and get an answer.  Alternatively it can be disturbing, the very last entry in my very last paper diary is something that I still wonder about often.  

The perspective, and the hilariousness, were equally nice.  It makes me curious if when the time comes to give my own kids the advice I'd give myself at 11 years old, if I should just hand them a stack of journals and throw my hands up in the air and say "You know what, I don't actually know!"