Keepers of private notebooks are a different breed altogether, lonely and resistant rearrangers of things, anxious malcontents, children afflicted apparently at birth with some presentiment of loss.

- JOAN DIDION, On Keeping A Notebook

Throughout my life I have tried keeping a somewhat consistent diary multiple times, and I have of course failed. What I have to show for it is a collection of half empty notebooks stacking up in some drawer in my room. And although a waste of paper, of space, and plainly of a nice notebook that could probably be used for something more useful instead, I often enjoy reading over the pages, reflecting on what past versions of myself worried about.

Chase the dog, a diary entry from summer 2016 reads.

Who is Chase? What dog? Is someone chasing the dog? No idea, but since it is written down I am guessing that it meant something to me at some point.

It is a peculiar feeling, to dust out an old notebook and read through pages of inner dialogue. How weird to look over words that are, if anything, vaguely familiar reminders of the worries and opinions of past versions of yourself. I am reminded of Joan Didion’s essay On Keeping a Notebook.

Why did I write it down? In order to remember, of course, but exactly what was it I wanted to remember? How much of it actually happened? Did any of it? Why do I keep a notebook at all? It is easy to deceive oneself on all those scores. The impulse to write things down is a peculiarly compulsive one, inexplicable to those who do not share it, useful only accidentally, only secondarily, in the way that any compulsion tries to justify itself. I suppose that it begins or does not begin in the cradle.

Some of my old diaries date back over a decade, and I think the more time that has passed between the me that wrote in the notebook and the me that re-reads the notebook, the more skeptical I am about anything written on it.

An impressively in-depth entry from 7th grade reads “I felt butterflies” when referring to the supposed eye contact I made with my then-crush during gym class. That is not only cringe, but it is also most probably a lie. Did (insert crush name) and I really have ‘a moment’? Or was I so head over heels into my Twilight phase that I wanted to romanticize every moment of my life? Again, it’s hard to tell. I fail at identifying with the thoughts of a person I no longer resonate with.

But in the end, it doesn’t matter whether 12-year-old me was exaggerating or not, if I wrote it down then it is probably what it felt like to me at the time, hence making it somewhat true. I would say diaries are a lot more about collecting one’s versions of themselves at a point in time rather than keeping an exact report about someone’s life.

Every diary and inner thought could be arguably bogus, yet still a genuine account of events from the perspective of the writer.

I will once again mention Didion’s writing On Keeping a Notebook.

The point of my keeping a notebook has never been, nor is it now, to have an accurate factual record of what I have been doing or thinking. That would be a different impulse entirely, an instinct for reality which I sometimes envy but do not possess. [...]

It is a good idea, then, to keep in touch, and I suppose that keeping in touch is what notebooks are all about. And we are all on our own when it comes to keeping those lines open to ourselves: your notebook will never help me, nor mine you.

That last part of the sentence, “your notebook will never help me, nor mine you,” is a thought I keep going back to over the years.

If I were to give you one of my diaries, maybe you would find a couple of pages entertaining, but I doubt you would be able to understand most of it. The handwriting is bad, the thoughts are rushed and weirdly developed, and the references are so weirdly specific that it sometimes takes me a few minutes to remember whatever I was trying to talk about (if I ever do).

A sweet reminder that in a world where it sometimes feels like everything we do is a curated version of our true selves - to be approved of and dissected by other people - when most of us journal, there is no one else meant to read it but ourselves. Yet, here I am quoting my diary for you. So who knows.

I first read On Keeping a Notebook as a junior in high school for my English literature class. I wouldn’t say that it is my favorite out of her essays, but it is definitely the one that keeps pulling me back the most. I would have probably continued journaling regardless of whether or not I ever read an essay by Didion (as she mentioned, it is an instinct that is born in the cradel). But recently, I think of her a little every time I do.

She died over this past Christmas break, on December 23rd.

That same day I was looking through some old boxes in my room, and found a diary I kept for a few months in high school. The following is an undated entry from 2019.

Why the printed picture of her instead of just writing down her name? No idea. I have always admired Didion’s writing but I did not remember liking her so much that I felt the need to jot it down. It is so easy to forget who we once were, forget the memories we thought we would keep forever.

We forget all too soon the things we thought we could never forget. We forget the loves and the betrayals alike, forget what we whispered and what we screamed, forget who we were. I have already lost touch with a couple of people I used to be; one of them, a seventeen year-old, presents little threat, although it would be of some interest to me to know again what it feels like to sit on a river levee drinking vodka-and-orange-juice and listening to Les Paul and Mary Ford and their echoes sing “How High the Moon'' on the car radio. (You see I still have the scenes, but I no longer perceive myself among those present, no longer could even improvise the dialogue.

But let this serve as a reminder that any jotted down thought can help remind you, even if for a brief moment. Because when I look at this Didion entry, I don’t necessarily think of Didion, or her writing, or her influence on me right away. I mainly think of who I was back then, what I wanted to do, what I aspired to be. And so I will continue journaling, and encourage you to do it as well. We will all forget what it was like to be twenty one day, to have to pull through those last exams at the end of the session, and to go out for an aperitivo after knowing that you most likely failed that exam you took earlier in the day.

So write those thoughts down! If not to remember, then to reflect.

(I didn’t want to turn this article into a biography about Didion, but if you do want to learn more about her I recommend watching Joan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold on Netflix!)

On Archiving Identities: Keeping Joan Didion Close

Keepers of private notebooks are a different breed altogether, lonely and resistant rearrangers of things, anxious malcontents, children afflicted apparently at birth with some presentiment of loss.

Chase the dog, a diary entry from summer 2016 reads.

Who is Chase? What dog? Is someone chasing the dog? No idea, but since it is written down I am guessing that it meant something to me at some point.

It is a peculiar feeling, to dust out an old notebook and read through pages of inner dialogue. How weird to look over words that are, if anything, vaguely familiar reminders of the worries and opinions of past versions of yourself. I am reminded of Joan Didion’s essay On Keeping a Notebook.

Some of my old diaries date back over a decade, and I think the more time that has passed between the me that wrote in the notebook and the me that re-reads the notebook, the more skeptical I am about anything written on it.

Every diary and inner thought could be arguably bogus, yet still a genuine account of events from the perspective of the writer.

I will once again mention Didion’s writing On Keeping a Notebook.

The point of my keeping a notebook has never been, nor is it now, to have an accurate factual record of what I have been doing or thinking. That would be a different impulse entirely, an instinct for reality which I sometimes envy but do not possess. [...]

It is a good idea, then, to keep in touch, and I suppose that keeping in touch is what notebooks are all about. And we are all on our own when it comes to keeping those lines open to ourselves: your notebook will never help me, nor mine you.

That last part of the sentence, “your notebook will never help me, nor mine you,” is a thought I keep going back to over the years.

She died over this past Christmas break, on December 23rd.

That same day I was looking through some old boxes in my room, and found a diary I kept for a few months in high school. The following is an undated entry from 2019.

Why the printed picture of her instead of just writing down her name? No idea. I have always admired Didion’s writing but I did not remember liking her so much that I felt the need to jot it down. It is so easy to forget who we once were, forget the memories we thought we would keep forever.

So write those thoughts down! If not to remember, then to reflect.

(I didn’t want to turn this article into a biography about Didion, but if you do want to learn more about her I recommend watching Joan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold on Netflix!)