Dear Diary, Should I Just Start Saying Everything Out Loud?
Dear Diary,
I’ve been writing in you for as long as I can remember. When I was younger, I would write about how annoying my brother was being, or how unfair it was that my parents had stricter rules for me than him. Or I’d write about the cute boys and girls in my class. Or how I wished I was friends with certain girls, but they didn’t like me.
My problems have gotten a lot more complicated than that, but here I am still writing in you and I don’t even know why.
Dear Diary,
Was it about these pages? They know more about me than anyone. Sometimes I write to you like you’re my best friend, waiting to here the gossip. Other days I write to you as if to give future me a message (even though we both know I won’t listen). And sometimes I write to you, as if I’m already gone.
Dear Diary,
Am I being selfish? Keeping all these secrets for just you and I to share? You’re like my therapist, except I pay you less, but you know more than she does. I do ask you both for advice, and it ends up the same – talking it all out until I come up with the solutions on my own. I hate that.
Dear Diary,
It’s a weird feeling, yknow? I write to you and I feel heard. But you don’t hear me. You could never hear me. You’re a book. A page. A piece of paper or a word document on my computer. You don’t have opinions. You don’t even reply. Everything on these pages comes from my heart, my head and only I can see it. Only I dictate what I write and what I do with what’s written. And maybe, that’s the problem.
Dear Diary,
What if I shared our secrets? Tore open the book, sent the word documents, left all that’s written open to explore? Would people still love once they saw the thoughts in my head? Would they judge me? Would it make them want to hold me tight, or run away screaming?
But you are my comfort zone, and I’m happy here.
Dear Diary,
How many other people feel this way? Do you think if I opened my heart and mind, that people would realize they too have felt the same way I do? Would it bring us closer? Is that what the world needs? To better understand each other? To let each other read our diaries, show our scars and our fears, and understand each other? To not run away from baggage, but help one another carry theirs around? Would it feel less heavy?
I don’t think I’m ready.
Dear Diary,
Maybe one day I’ll be ready. Maybe it’ll go better than I thought. But until I can find a better listener than you, I don’t think these pages will ever stop.