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Well, I'll suggest the email method as well.
Just setup a new email account. Write from your regular email address to the new one.
Delete from your sent folder.
If you want extra security, setup a two-factor authentication (2fa) to make it even harder to access to your diary email account. For gmail you can easily follow this tutorial:
Sure. I've kept diaries since 1988, when I was about 21 or so. They were never super-extensive, but a few pages here and there. Rise of electronic media, c. 1991 for me (when I began writing reports, on Word Perfect and much, much later Microsoft Word) changed things a bit. Oldest electronic files I have are Word from c. 1997.
I've lived by myself since 1990, so never had to lock anything up too tightly. Journals were often hidden in plain sight on bookshelves. No one I've ever known would have ever wanted to look for such a thing, much less care if they found them I assume. Over the years, I'm on fifth "volume" or so, though some are in binders of less than a hundred pages (hand-written) so let's not confuse my work with that of VI Lenin or something.
At (almost) 50, presumably life is far more than half-done, unf. Since I will never, ever, willingly live under the same roof as another person again, they are perfectly safe in my, err, safe. The combo to that will not confound the keepers of Ft. Knox, they can drill or blast on my demise fairly quickly for various goodies.
The diaries are for me, no one else, and probably not terribly interesting.
The Blog posts on CD are more pragmatic essays. Posts like this one, amusements to inform others how I handle various situations in life. Between all of it, guessing I write a thousand words or so per day, that being what: ten paragraphs, perhaps? Sometimes more, sometimes less.
I'm not blind to the fact that those with spouses or long term companions, which seems to be the vast bulk of humanity, may be a bit torn due to needing a place to write down private thoughts but at the same time guilty about those thoughts and even *wanting* to hide them.
I said once, perhaps here, perhaps elsewhere, that diary writing is my anti depressant........so given those days when I write 10-20 pages, I must really be depressed? Well, something like that, maybe, yes, no, I don't know.
Monday was a six pager and a lot of it was done lying in bed, trying to fall asleep. Events of the day, reflections there of, and then trying to figure out why I was so tense. Not sure if I worked out the last, perhaps it was a bad reaction to seeing how Pan Am Flight 110 was used to promote another's agenda on 9/11 no less, but I don't know.
What I do know is the way I "created" to diffuse my stress afterwards so to sleep, by picturing it as this great force I was trying to align myself with, concentrating on that and not what I could do with that force if I did. While I did this, images flashed in my mind of Trek (That Which Survives), Charmed (Primrose Empath), a comic book I read as a child, Moonraker, a concept of A Wrinkle in Time, others. My stress blinked in and out (that is, for moments I was not aware of it) and eventually, I was asleep. This method may not have been entirely pleasant, however, because I did have a semi nightmare of being with two Alice in Wonderlands in a nursing home where my mother was where they were killing patients while an asteroid field was closing in on the planet. Maybe my go to sleep technique started a mind cleansing process. I do know when I awoke, the stress level had dropped.
So, a thing or two. As mentioned before, I put pictures in my diaries which align with this or that note I write down. Some of those images appeared in the sequence tonight. If the diary is an extension of myself, then maybe those images, with their associated linkages are additional memory banks that the subconscious can pull on to solve problems.
If so, however, two things to keep in mind (I know, bad pun). First, I said earlier that I review my past diaries from time to time, so review is something that should be done. Even this evening, when I first pulled this volume from my bag, I review the earlier pages by their pasted images. Secondly, while I don't have control of my subconscious, I do use it for a lot of "directed" processing. Speaking in a popular concept, my means of "putting it on the back burner" is to pass it to the subconscious for processing.
SECONDLY.........I think it is time for me to start a Book of Shadows in addition to keeping a diary, starting with this mental way of combating stress.
Quote:
Originally Posted by nuala
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For example, this man, journalist, Michael Bohm, 51yo now, has lived in Moscow, Russia for 20 years. He wanted to speak and live Russian, which he has mastered quite well. He basically voluntarily serves as a punchbag on Russian TV talk shows, presenting American views in a hostile environment. While reading his blogs in Russian, however, annoying incongruences jump out at you, (this is a man with 20 years of immersion!), like his penchant for outdated proverbs (he must have decided to learn folklore sayings and use them) that sounds foreign in a context.
..........
ANYWAY, with all that said, using another language is, of course, one way of cryptography, - until they invent technology for reading human scribbles and translating them.
My diary and for that matter, myself, tend to be a lot like that. Using classical terms for expression here and there. Those who occupy social media with their opinions are soothsayers. It is not, for me, a swimmer delivery vehicle but a chariot. Concepts of time tables about when certain windows will occur.
I suppose things like this occur when one is an actress, such a buff about certain eras of movies and history. As such, however, by thinking in classical, if not quite imaginative terms, such as perhaps with "white rabbits", it allows my mind to dream, to fantasize, if only for a moment, to say nothing of contributing to the abstraction style of writing.
It's just "it's an older code but it checks out", doncha know?
Last edited by TamaraSavannah; 09-12-2017 at 01:11 AM..
I don't know if this would be considered strictly a diary. And I have not read through the posts.
My mother, Rusty, died on December 17, 2014. My natural father, Jerry, had died on January 5, 1973. They were married until death but as you will see there were some problems in that relationship, along with most of her relationships with friends and family.
In those days, as was common, women were pressured to marry when leaving high school or college. My mother had wanted to continue to a graduate degree but in those days that was a tough sell to parents of females. The marriage was under, lets call it heavy pressure from her parents, who didn't want a "boomerang" child in their modest Yonkers house. My parents married in February 1955. I was born in April 1957. Circa 1960 or 1961 my mother thought better of her marriage to my father. First she had a brief renaissance with her college sweetheart, let's call him "Harvey." My father found out about it and, being a mench, invited him to dinner. Harvey declined. Harvey offered to adopt me if my mother left my father for him. My mother realized that Harvey had gone off the deep end, though that was not the last we were to here of him. So "Plan B" was to invite herself back to her parents' house. She wrote a letter, apparently for her own use, for talking points to get her parents to take her back, with me in tow. This letter was analogous to the hurtful diary, so let's call it the "Diary Letter", since is was largely mudslinging against my father.
I do know that her parents were not keen on her "boomeranging" with child in tow. My grandmother made some hints to me on that subject and when I ultimately found the letter her remarks, and some from my mother Rusty made sense. But I'm ahead of myself. In December 1972, as my father's illness was progressing to the final stages, my mother and Harvey were again in touch. This was a month before his death. Had Harvey not been crazy I probably would have supported a romantic relationship. My mother wisely backed off. As I said, Jerry, my father, died on January 5, 1973. On or about February 9, 1973 my soon-to-be stepfather, Edwin called. They had just met at Monday night banking and he called after he got home from the bank but before my mother did. Their first date was February 14, 1973, and they saw the then-popular Linda Lovelace movie, Deep Throat. They married June 13, 1974. Me and my soon-to-be siblings strongly supported the marriage. One of those had attended elementary, junior high and part of high school with me and she was at my May 2, 1970 Bar Mitzvah.
Now, fast forward to February 2015, shortly after her death. Me and my siblings were emptying their apartment in preparation for its sale. I found the "Diary Letter" in a box high in a closet and read it. Part of the Diary Letter said that my father fondled her mother's and sister's breasts. I was old enough to know him and it is probably rank BS. But even if true, did it need to be preserved? In any event I knew immediately that my mother was largely at fault for her and my mother's often stormy relationship and her somewhat frequent arguments with my stepfather. I had the dubious honor of mediating both sets of needless fights since I was the only one always on talking terms with both my stepfather and my mother, as well as obviously my wife (except when I took my mother's car keys away but that's another story for another post).
So how does this relate to the OP? The Diary Letter was, while never distributed, a needless, gratuitous slap at my father. She was lucky she didn't become a single, 28 year old mother of a four year old.
^^ But you didn't HAVE to read the letter. Sure you were going through her things after death. I have had to do this also. It doesn't' take reading an entire letter to realize what your reading may not have been for your eyes to see. You chose to finish reading it.
I found some of my mom's letters. Not knowing what they contained, I took a deep breath before reading them. I could have stopped reading at anytime. But I didn't.
You, me or anyone else. Once you find out something about a person AFTER they're already dead, you have to ask yourself how to I process this information? The person is gone. People mentioned in the letter may still be alive. You've read something you never should have seen. I think you find a way to deal with it yourself, keep it to yourself. And move on.
^^ But you didn't HAVE to read the letter. Sure you were going through her things after death. I have had to do this also. It doesn't' take reading an entire letter to realize what your reading may not have been for your eyes to see. You chose to finish reading it.
I found some of my mom's letters. Not knowing what they contained, I took a deep breath before reading them. I could have stopped reading at anytime. But I didn't.
You, me or anyone else. Once you find out something about a person AFTER they're already dead, you have to ask yourself how to I process this information? The person is gone. People mentioned in the letter may still be alive. You've read something you never should have seen.
Avoiding reading stuff like that is like passing a bloody wreck on the highway and not looking. It's just not possible. Reading the letter did help in certain ways. For example many conflicts between my parents when my father was alive, then me in college, then my stepfather, and then my wife suddenly made sense. They made sense in the way that they didn't really make sense. She was a chronic pot-stirrer. And it helps me consciously avoid doing the same thing; needlessly stirring trouble and ending calm patches.
Quote:
Originally Posted by selhars
I think you find a way to deal with it yourself, keep it to yourself. And move on.
Are you telling me I was wrong to post this? Are you a super-moderator?
When I have gone back and reread diaries that I wrote for certain periods or trips, I am always surprised at the little, colorful details I forgot about in the intervening years. Also, if I did not fill in all the daily entries right away but did so soon afterward, I was surprised at how the existing entries jogged my memory so I could add the missing days.
In addition to being good for the soul, writing a diary makes a fine mental exercise and way of honing writing skills. And I love to read them later even though parts always make me cringe at myself!
I wished that I had kept the diary that I had in junior high, even though I only wrote in it for a semester, I know that reading it now would have been like going on a trip in a time machine.
I agree about the diary being a great mental exercise and to develop writing skills!
I keep journals that I wouldn't want read, but I have to do pen and paper. I journal during times I can't sleep or am worried about something, and I just grab a notebook and start writing. It wouldn't have the same effect for me on a computer. If I were worried about someone happening upon them, I would keep them locked in my fireproof safe that I keep my important papers in, and only I have a key for. There are many small safes for home use, you can get one for under $50.
As it is, I have a rule, that if something happens to me, no one is to go through or clean out my bedroom except my best friend (she already knows all my secrets) and she already knows to get rid of everything I wouldn't want my family to see. My brother is "in charge" if something happens and he already knows this.
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My Mother's "Diary Letter"
