Dear Diary, I May Have Misled You
We Meet Again
An overhead snippet of conversation hit me between the beans and biscuits one Tuesday in Tesco. It was that "It's never too late to start a diary." Or journal, as my American side of the family will insist.
Admittedly, I've heard this sentiment a bunch of times since we last met, but I heard it differently this time — and I haven't been able to unhear it.
So, I'm sitting in front of you once again, wondering if we should pick up where we left off.
Of course, I’m no longer the person I was in those angsty teenage days. Back then, I had high hopes and high breasts, both of which have gone south in varying degrees since then.
No, that version of me abandoned secret writings when paranoia set in.
The Great Diary Purge
I became convinced my parents would discover my confessional tomes and realise what terrible people they were.
“Dear Diary,
Mum made me do the dishes. Dad wasn’t happy with my end-of-term report. Fish again for dinner — WITH PEAS! My life is unbearable.”
Every injury to my person, every fish-based trauma, was documented.
It never occurred to me that my parents, who were busier than God raising seven children and a temperamental mortgage , wouldn’t give a damn about the delusional ramblings of a sticky teenager.
Still, my Dostoevsky-like fear grew daily. What if they did find my diaries? Worse, what if they found them and read them?
That’s when I began disappearing some of the more ‘colourful’ passages from my diaries — or “libellous slurs,” as the barristers might insist.
I ripped out whole pages and shredded them into teeny-tiny pieces of outraged confetti.
But then, how to dispose of the evidence?
A theatrical toilet flush might backfire if unreliable plumbing regurgitated righteous rebellions. A cathartic fireplace blaze would have been ideal — if we had a fireplace.
Ultimately, I settled for the dark bottom of our kitchen bin. What this solution lacked in romance, it made up for in accessibility — although even this path felt fraught with danger.
What if Mum suddenly developed a passion for domestic dumpster diving? Apropos of nothing, she rolled up her sleeves and rummaged through wet trash to discover my many soggy betrayals.
To my soap opera brain, this scenario felt not only plausible but inevitable.
So I took the scraps to school the next day and dropped them into the industrial-sized blue bins there. Job done.
However, that night, I lay awake in the sure knowledge I hadn’t thought the thing through. What if the Head Teacher scavenged through those bins and discovered he, too, was a twat?
A chronic illness was the answer.
Something severe enough to keep me off school for the next ten years. But not so debilitating as to prevent my sitting up to enjoy Mum’s sick room comfort food of buttery mashed potatoes, sausages and tinned spaghetti.
“Dear Diary,
Is leprosy still a thing?”
Karma Brought Teenagers
Looking back, I realise betrayal of self was probably driving my youthful mania — a shameful concept I would not have had the words for back then.
However, I did find the words some years later to apologise to Mum for my adolescent persona. It was an apology born out of crawling through the parenting trenches with my own drama-prone teenagers — or ‘Gibberish Generation’ as I liked to call them under my breath.
I spent days biting my lip blood-red or sitting defeated on a toilet seat, daydreaming of an easier life in an orange jumpsuit. A shaved head and showering fully clothed alongside Big Bertha had to be better than this daily onslaught.
I’m grateful the idea of starting a diary again didn’t occur to me then. If the deletion of teenage melodrama required school bin disposal, my parental musings would have necessitated an off-shore incinerator and an airtight alibi.
Maybe Mum wasn’t so busy all those years ago not to have noticed my disdain and sensationalisms. She was merely trying to avoid twenty to life.
On Microwaves and Mortality
Those times of youthful mistakes and melodrama have given way to more pressing adult concerns. Like not contributing enough to my pension fund or forgetting that tin foil doesn’t do well in a microwave. (That’s aluminium foil for my American cousins.)
Or that on a Friday, one day in January, your husband will walk out into the arms of a heart attack, and you will never see him again.
The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth
So why now when the stakes feel so much higher? When the idea of unvarnished truth scares me.
Mature candour feels heavier and more complex. It’s no longer about my parents, teachers, or teenage me. It’s about the stories I tell and have told myself.
And the stories I’ve avoided.
The thing about keeping a diary — or journal — is that it forces you to pay attention. Attention that without honesty is a waste of time. With more years behind me than ahead, what would be the point when what most diary keepers probably want is legacy?
An opportunity to say, “I was here. I mattered. It all mattered.”
But still, I worry about what this renewed attention will end up giving me. Will it give me clarity or leave me with the scraps of a story I’ll never be able to piece together?
And where do I even begin?
With a pigeon, maybe.
A fat, grey pigeon that got itself trapped in my greenhouse.
Flight Pattern
You’ll remember how much I always hated pigeons — and how much more I disliked them when I learned they carried fifty-two communicable diseases. Back in my younger diary-writing days, we didn’t have Google to fact check, but I’m pretty sure Derek in biology knew what he was talking about.
I was sipping tea at my bedroom window when I noticed the grey mass flapping frantically against the impenetrable glass.
The daft bird must have swooped in when the greenhouse roof opened to protect tender seedlings from sunburn.
Once adequate ventilation had been reached, the roof would close again automatically, sealing Fat Fred in his glass coffin.
I stood, stupefied, my mind running hot with how many more diseases pigeons might carry today.
Then, just as quickly, my husband came to mind. He would never have stood there watching the creature suffer. The weight of this thought snapped me out of my stupor.
I had to deal with the situation.
It was me to deal with every situation now.
Maybe I could run out, yank open the greenhouse door and hasten to safety?
An involuntary flashback to Alfred Hitchcock’s ‘The Birds’ — all gorged-out eyes and razor-sharp beaks ripping through soft flesh — made me shudder.
Maybe a neighbour could help?
But would they be willing to help in silence?
I continued to have little patience for the “So how are you coping?” and “One day at a time” platitudes. My conversational repertoire had become mute and uncharitable — my only defence against well-meant kindness and unsolicited meals.
Maybe not the neighbours, then.
Putting a rain check on rageful tears, I stomped into the utility room and layered up. Two winter coats, straw hat, wellies and rubber gardening gloves (size L).
A faint smell of aftershave, Pour Monsieur by Chanel, wafted up from one of the collars. Memories of a rainy-day picnic filled the air until a renewed frenzy from the greenhouse pulled me back.
With a broomstick held high, I locked eyes with Fred.
For a moment, he stopped thrashing against the greenhouse roof, where a small gap created by the noon sun had reappeared. But it was still too narrow a slit to give either of us a much-needed happy ending.
Then, as if bored with the spectacle, the Universe sighed, and the greenhouse roof yawned open a little wider.
A trembling Fred lurched at freedom, blindly heading skyward.
Throwing off the stifling layers, I stood in the greenhouse, breathing in the once-shared scents of damp soil and fertiliser.
I began clearing away the feathered carnage, righting and watering the budding green shoots. One day, they would be a riot of colour in our cottage garden.
I watered and wondered:
If that fat bird could do it, could I?
“Dear Diary,
The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth is that I feel lost and alone. I hoped we might be able to pick up the pieces together.”
