I was once in a relationship with a man that, unbeknownst to me until it was too late, liked to snoop through my journals when I wasn't around.
One evening when he picked me up from work, he had my journal with him, much to my extreme surprise.
"You have a lot of stuff about other guys in here," he complained, "And either you get rid of this journal right now, or we're through."
I was very young, insecure, and I thought (I know, I know) that I was in love. He'd already given me a diamond promise ring. I told him I'd go through it and take out the entries that mentioned others. I figured I could do that, since it looked like this was going to be a long-term relationship. I imagined he'd take my word for it, and that would be that. I could remove things at my leisure.
"Do it right now," he told me, "We need to get this behind us."
What I should have been doing 'right then' is smacking the guy over the head for snooping, then giving him the boot. Hindsight.
I sat on the curb and started thumbing through the pages, plucking out one here and one there.
"That's good enough," he said, "Come on!"
At that point I was beginning to stand up for myself, protesting that a lot of the entries in the journal were precious to me; there'd been a lot of growth represented on those lines, a lot of difficult circumstances that I'd gotten through. My pleas didn't phase him. He angrily drove me to a canal and ordered me to dump my journal over the railing and into the water.
I did.
That unhealthy relationship lasted for years. I always knew that the instance at the canal was sick and twisted, and that my acquiescing to a narcissist's demands was inherently the wrong thing to do. I've deeply regretted allowing someone else to censor me on behalf of their own comfort, and whenever anyone else tries to do that currently, it irks me still. Changing your writing for anyone's tastes is, in the long run, never worth it.
The story of my grandmother's writing is the perfect example.
Although I was only six months old when she died, I know a few things about her. I know that people loved her. I know that she used to practically invite their entire small town over for Sunday dinner. I know that she was short, curly-haired, and loved to laugh. When she died at the young age of 54, so many people were heartbroken. The cheerful elfin-like woman with the bright blue eyes and unforgettable laugh was sorely missed.
My grandmother was a journal-keeper. She'd written her heart out in them; she was said to have been a sensitive soul. She had volumes and volumes of her thoughts on paper.
When she passed, my grandfather discovered the journals. For reasons only he could know, he took them and burned every last one. Perhaps there were things therein that incriminated him or others. Perhaps she'd written things about friends or family that were touchy. No one will ever know; the secret died with my grandfather. There's a part of me that's peeved about that; he deprived us of being able to know a woman that only shared the same planet with me for mere months. I could have known her; the good, the bad and the ugly if there was any.
Does anyone have the right to make that call? I suppose there could be arguments for either way. One thing I can tell you; when I knock on the pearly gates, my journals will be in safekeeping with those that I trusted. If that's not someone in the family, then they'll be stored out of the family. My grandchildren and great grandchildren have the right to know where they came from, and who I was. Who I am.
I like to imagine, in a plucky sort of way, that the writer in me comes from Grandma. That even though her thoughts were burned to ashes, she's able to work through me sometimes. The sensitivity. Her thoughts of injustice. Her emotions. I hope she feels rather satisfied that two out of five of her grandchildren turned to writing as both a hobby and a career. More than once I picture her smiling down on me and thinking, "You can't stop the writer in me, no matter how hard you try."
Pearl S. Buck penned it this way:
"Self-expression must pass into communication for its fulfillment."
Like the baby whose cry isn't heard the first time around, she gasps for air, then cries even harder, louder, and with more strength. Self-expression can't be stopped, and it can't be silenced.
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