PostSecret

I've kept a diary since I was 14. No lie. I'm 38. That's 24 years. I keep them in a big rubbermaid container in our storage locker in the basement. They used to be in a ramshackle cardboard box but I got my act together a few months ago and went through all of my stuff in the storage locker, realizing that they would be ruined if they ever got wet. But this raises the question - what do I hope will happen to them? I don't want anyone to ever read them and feel that I should leave strict instructions that they be destroyed in the event of my death. And yet, there they sit. Waiting. Well, not really waiting because they are only paper and ink, but still. There they are. I was thinking last night as I wrote in my current journal (that's what I call it now. Diary seems so....adolescent.) that I am now kind of keeping two journals. This one and that one. What's the difference?
Here's what I came up with.
I write that one for myself only. I don't intend that anyone will ever read it because they would then discover what I truly am. That my brain runs in circles in my head and how boring my thought processes are. I guess it's my book of worries - it flips back and forth between two things - weight and money, weight and money. It's awful and I have been doing it for years. That's not to say I don't think about other things, because I definitely do, but somehow, when I'm putting pen to paper, I get stuck in those things and try to come up with some action plan for change.
So what about this one? What's the difference? The difference is that when I write on paper, I feel as though I'm moving through a fog and I'm just trying to get stuff out but when I write here - there is clarity. This is all personal, but I'm writing it for someone to read- even if no one does.
There's a site called "Future Me.org" where you can write a letter to yourself. The site saves it for you and emails it to you on the date that you pick. This is a very interesting idea to me. I just wrote one today that questions where I'm at in six months. What have I done? What about each and every thing that I want to do? The obvious things - lose weight and save money (since I am, essentially, a broken record) and less obvious things that get forgotten so easily - writing a letter to a friend I haven't spoken to in a long time, painting my living room because I'm completely sick of the colour and how beat up the walls look, as well as deeper, more long term stuff like repairing things in my relationship that are broken and easy to ignore. Day to day life can be very relentless and I am really bad at relaxing and letting go of all of the little things that need to be done in order to prioritize my partner or our relationship. So I hope that by giving myself a little wake-up call in six months, I might remember what I thought was important now. And if I still think it's important down the road, then writing the letter was worth the effort.
Kind of like keeping 24 years worth of journals. Maybe someday I'll figure that out too.