Week 3 Prompt: What did you expect, privacy?

 The last people that I want to read my thoughts are those who know me, especially those who are close to me. The diaries and journals I have kept have always been a place for my deepest feelings to come to light. I would write and write and let every idea flow as fast as my pen could carry it. These feelings were not always proud moments for me. I remember a few times I wrote something down and was so immediately shocked by it that I paused writing – sometimes you do not realize how you feel until you try to put it into words. And those words can be ugly. Those words can hurt. The words of a diary lead us to a deeper part of ourselves and those same words betray us the moment someone else reads them.

I remember coming back to my bedroom with some drinks and my boyfriend was sitting on my bed texting someone. He seemed a bit more tense, but I was not able to place why. This sort of thing happened a couple of times. We were in a rocky patch and I assumed that was all it was. Two teenagers trying to figure out their feelings and how to express them to each other – not that adults are always more skilled at it.

I remember a moment where I realized my diary was on the floor next to my bed when he was over multiple times. I forgot to put it away and there was no real worry from my perspective – I trusted people who could enter my room at least enough to trust that my diary was something they would not abuse.

What I do not remember is how I came to learn that he had read it. I remember him knowing something he should not have but I do not remember if I called him out or if he offered it up. I do remember reeling. I remember being embarrassed. I remember being destroyed because I could not trust him.

I am rather open about many things – sometimes things that I should not be. Sometimes it bothers people. What bothers me is that I am so open, often brutally honest, yet people still feel the need to try to sneak a peek at my diary.

Privacy is supposed to be a right, yet people treat themselves to our deepest thoughts without invitation, taking our heart out of context.

Diaries can hold a lot of things. Drawings, poems, writing ideas, dreams, secrets. Mine have held all of those things – in fact, I would argue that I’ve had as many sketchbooks as diaries and they both tend to cross over into each other’s’ territory at times.

Diaries can hold anything, but I guess you could say that my diaries are where I put my shame. The dark thoughts of postpartum – not just the wow-I’m-sad ones but the dangerous ones that would break my family’s heart. The anger at my roommates for not doing more chores even though I knew what was preventing it. My uncertainty of my engagement. Diaries are where I put my hurt that I can’t bear to share in detail.

I have never intentionally torn apart or burned a journal, despite my broken trust and desire to keep things confidential – with my moving as an adult most of my diaries have ended up lost in a family of boxes never unpacked. If I cannot find them, I doubt anyone else will. A false sense of security perhaps, but still, it guards me from any real concern that they will be read.

I have considered destroying them. Never with any seriousness, though. I have gone through too many phases of life – too many changes of scenery and friends. My diaries hold a dark part of me, but they also hold memories that are precious and names that I have long since forgotten but will remember their face the moment I read what I wrote.

What will I do in the end, though? Will I allow my family to read the confusing whirlwind of my diaries or will I one day spontaneously ransack the house for every lost journal just to burn them all?

I have no idea. It certainly seems to be of human nature to want to read diaries, though. If you cannot trust people not to read your diaries while you are alive, what in the world do you expect when you are dead?