My 25th year found me living alone in Drumtara, pregnant, poor and lonely. I was also very bored so, to pass the time, I kept a journal. It ran to two volumes and I have to admit it was one of the most tedious, self-obsessed and whiney journals ever written. It didn't contain an ounce of humour or interest and every time I've looked at those two notebooks since I have cringed.
So why did it take me more than three decades to rid myself of these woeful books ?
Today, during an epic attic clearance, I decided the time had come to burn the dreary things and the only place in the house with a burning fire is in Pearlie's room.
What's that ye have there?
Just some old diaries.
What! Reach them to me!
They're not yours Pearlie. They're mine. Just some old diaries I kept when I was in my 20s.
Setting them carefully on the fire.
I'd love to read those!
You would not.
Piling the coal around them.
I'd have been very interested in those.
I bet you would.
I felt a tiny bit guilty depriving Pearlie of the pleasure of finding out what a shallow twat I was when I was 24 but very, very happy to be rid of the reminder. Thanks be for the cleansing power of flames.
2 comments:
My stuff from back then was pretty awful.... Find Pearlie something else to read.
She's not stuck for something to read at all as she lives in the room where I kept the bulk of my books. She recently read Tess of the d'Urbervilles but mostly she prefers to read and work on puzzle books. I'd bet she'd have loved to see those diaries. Hell! Maybe reading them would have made her like me more.
Too late now. They're ash.
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