Tuesday, May 27, 2008

what would you do?

did you keep a diary or journal growing up? at some point in life would you let your grown children read it?

i have these journals, old journals that i keep in a footlocker. the footlocker is like a memory book of sorts. it holds keepsakes from my childhood, high school and college years and from when the hubs and i were first married. there are birthday cards going back to when i turned 8; letters my dad wrote me when he was in korea and i was in third grade; probably every card and letter the hubs wrote me when we were dating; scrapbooks; my high school memory book; art projects, etc. and the journals.

i started writing a journal in middle school, but back then it was a school project and i remember not having much to write in it a lot of times so i made stuff up. imagine that : ) then there was high school and i wrote in my journal a lot then. it chronicles when i met the hubs, our relationship, my feelings, etc. at one point when we were dating the hubs asked if he could read it. being the paranoid kook that i am i went through and blacked out things i didn't want him to read and let him read the rest of it. i kept a journal through college as well. those were the bad years. and i documented a lot of things. a lot of things i'm not proud of. i'm sure i wrote about the first time i smoked weed and the sex partners and the drinking and the thinking i was in love with another guy, etc. these are not secrets from the hubs. and while i'm not that person any more, that time of my life did shape who and what i am today.

from time to time the hubs and i have discussed what should be done with these journals in the event of my death.

on one hand i want them destroyed. i don't know that i could do this myself. if i outlive the hubs i fear that i'd hold on to them for the memories and would then have to have someone, most likely my brother, come in and destroy them (and all the other incriminating things).

on the other hand i toy with the idea of letting the girl have them when she's an adult. while the journals do talk about things i don't want the girl to know about now (or probably ever) i do think it would be neat for her to KNOW me, to know that i too was young and went through the same thoughts, feelings, problems she went through. but then i think ok, do i really want her to know i was a slut in college? i'm not that worried about the drugs because i figure by the time she's an adult (i'm talking like 30+) she won't be that surprised that her parents smoked weed.

i do think it would be neat for her (and possibly the boy) to read about the beginning of the hubs and my relationship. i mean, i think it would be cool to know my mom's thoughts during that time of her life.

i don't know. i waffle on the issue. what would you do?

non sequitor:
do you ever wish you had a totally secret blog? like you've told too many people about your blog and if you knew no body you actually knew in person was reading you'd totally write some shit that would curl their toes?

7 comments:

Astarte said...

I'm thinking that by the time your kids are in their 30's, you'll probably have shared some of your life choices with them, so reading them won't be such a shock.

I think that the only problem with passing them on after you die is that it will be childish words you're passing on, with no qualifiers. If you tell them all your stories as they grow up, and can include the perspective of an adult along with the stories of a child, it might be better, because if they don't hear any of these 'secrets' about you until you die, they won't be able to ask you anything about them, like you learned from these choices, do you regret any of it, would you do these things again, etc. I also think that there are things, like sex, that we tend to write about very graphically in journals that maybe our kids won't WANT to read. For instance, if I read something where my mother detailed her latest f**k with some guy, I would totally throw up. Having her tell me the story would be different, because it would have perspective and not be so much like a tell-all movie of the week starring my mom.

Kristin.... said...

I'll respond to the non-sequitor because I don't know about the journals....I'll let you know about that one tomorrow.

God yes I wish I had a secret blog~secret from the husband and the family so I could really let some things out.

Anonymous said...

What if you wrote a new version of your journals, a memoir of the things you want them to know? You could pull from the old stuff, but not use all of it.

I think you DO have a secret blog. And no, I haven't tried to find it. :)

Sweet T

creative kerfuffle said...

good point about not just having the kids read them w/out further explanation. as for the sex, i never wrote about it graphically (i know, hard to imagine given the things i write here huh?) so i wasn't worried about that. worried more about the quantity. i do think it might be interesting, if i ever could make myself do it, to write the memoirs using the journals as sweet t suggested.
and honestly, i don't have a secret blog but sometimes toy w/ the idea. sometimes there are just rants or things you need to get off your chest that you don't because you know the people reading your blog. when are YOU going to start one sweet t????

Anonymous said...

I think you could do a great secret blog. You are good at keeping this one away from others. :) I am sure that others do the same.
SIL

Anonymous said...

I'm too lazy to blog. I need to do an online portfolio, too, but doubt that'll happen anytime soon.

Aside: I like trying to pronounce the "word verification" letters below. This time it's "hoezrwj."

Sweet T

{sue} said...

I would love a secret blog. I'm too much of a goody-goody to say what I really want sometimes because I am afraid the person I am talking about may one day find it.