Why everyone should keep a personal diary

If by “personal diary” you think I mean a list of dull appointments, think again.  I’m talking about what people tend to call “journal(l)ing” now.  As in, writing your thoughts and feelings down on paper, by hand.

I don’t say “journal(l)ing” because that term doesn’t feel private or serious enough.  Maybe it’s because I grew up reading Adrian Mole and Anne Frank’s (very different) diaries, but diaries they will always be.

I’ve kept a personal diary since I was eight years old.

One of my first diaries, with the obligatory stickers.

My very first entry declares that if I were a ghost, I’d only haunt people so I could try and make them good, rather than scare them.  (It’s from the beginning of January, so I must have only just watched A Christmas Carol).

Most of my early child-entries are supremely annoying: mostly written in capitals, mostly about everything being “brill”.  When I start learning French A-Level I write my diaries in French, so my prying sisters can’t read them.  30 years later I can’t read them myself, so I’ll either have to re-learn French or burn the lot.

Late-child-me also experiments with grading her days from A-E and writing to her diary as though it’s a friend, Anne Frank-style.  She signs entries off as one of three aliases, each denoting a certain mood (happy, sad, neutral).  Every child-diary I own also has a list of ‘favourite words’ scribbled in the back – “glimpse” makes a regular appearance – along with elaborate doodles of eyes, boxes and stars.

I had a lot of idle moments in the early 90s.

Diaries are a brutally honest reminder of who you were. 

Read an old diary back and the chances are at least one sentence will shock you, so much have you changed.  (For me, one such sentence was “I couldn’t care less what happens to that cat”, written just after our family pet went missing in 1991.  I’m such a ‘cat person’ and all-round animal lover now, that I cried reading those words back!).

Looking at how I thought and felt is often awful and frequently embarrassing, but it’s always enlightening.  It stops me from being too judgemental of others: if I forgot who I used to be, so will they.  We’re all flawed, hypocritical works-in-progress.  And as Ad-Rock (from the 80’s hip-hop group Beastie Boys) wisely said, “I’d rather be a hypocrite, than the same person forever.”

Old diaries are a time-travelling extravaganza.

In an instant, you’re taken back to the giddy wonder of your childhood, the frothing anguish of your teens, and all the scary uncertainties of the years that follow.   Diaries don’t just remind you of who you were, they help you re-live those years with the benefit of foresight.  They remind you that nothing is ever as terrible as it sometimes feels.

I’ve used my diaries to help me remember what it’s like to be a teenager, which is handy when your life includes troubled teens in need of empathy.  I can also step into the souls of my book characters at different points in their lives, which is golden.

Although anything goes, there’s one ‘diary caveat’.  Everything you write must be honest and for your eyes only.

A diary won’t help you if you write it for potential readers.  Maybe, you might think, your scribblings will be ‘discovered’ and turned into a book, then an Oscar-winning movie.  You could be played by Timothée Chalamet or Sydney Sweeney!

But diaries only work their magic when you’re being your whole, sometimes unreasonable, sometimes unpalatable, self.  Your diary shouldn’t be too nice or too gracious.  It should be filled with all the horrible, human thoughts you’d never, ever say out loud.  Your diary is only for you, so you can write whatever you like.  That’s what makes it special.

This, for me, is another difference between diary-keeping and “journal(l)ling”.

A journal conjures up thoughts of flower-patterned covers, gratitude-recording and fancy inspirations, not mad rants, churlish thoughts and irrational fears.  But the mad rants, churlish thoughts and irrational fears need a safe space to breathe and be understood.

(When I volunteered for the listening charity Samaritans, I ended every shift with a phone call to my supervisor.  We all did.  It was a non-judgemental call, meant purely for volunteers to air the intense emotions we’d felt during each shift, so we wouldn’t take them home with us.  It was remarkably effective).

A final, ‘no-pressure’ diary tip: don’t get one with actual dates in it.

If you don’t write for a few days, or weeks, or months, the white space will feel intimidating.  Just get a notebook and date your entries as you go.  The book should be as plain as possible, so you won’t feel guilty about sullying fancy paper with dark thoughts.

(Though I quite like that, personally).