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Flashback Friday







Is it ever OK to read someone's diary?  My first response is no.  My second response is, well, maybe.  In the box load of things I inherited from my folks was a small five year diary my mother wrote in when she was a girl.  Her first entry was Monday, January 1, 1939.  She was 13.  No doubt a Christmas gift.  Time and the elements have all but erased that first missive except for the word, "Hello,..." that starts it all off.  She kept this thing going, more or less for the next few years.  On the same first page there are January 1st entries for 1940, 1941, and 1942. 

 I'm not reading it page for page.  Some things need to stay where they are, in a time remote from now. They were the thoughts of a young girl in high school and they should stay there.  Suffice to say she spent a lot of time with Helen and a guy named George.  Like many kids of that time the movies were the more than entertainment, it was the place to go and be seen.  She liked an actor named John Garfield, and was happy to get out of school once in a while because of snow.  She went to the school dances and to the drug store for a soda with her friends.  



Why they went to a haunted house this close to Christmas is a mystery.  But maybe not.  Those things are fun anytime.

 What struck me most about the various entries was how "normal"  it all was.  My mother, the kid, was making entries most girls were in this age of the diary.  School, dating, movies, Christmas, fun with her folks, and fun with her friends. 
    
She even got in trouble.  But when you have a date with mellow Roy, I guess it is worth it.

 They aren't so much in fashion these days but diaries tell a story.  For a few years this little blue book held the secrets, thoughts and everyday events of my mom.  Her loves, her dislikes, her disagreements and a window into life in Monmouth Illinois in the early 40's.  

 The pages are now brittle and some have become loose from the binding.  They have yellowed with age, and the pencil and ink marks have faded.  All of the people are gone now, the lives but memories.  Marjie's life starting.  A young vibrant person excited by the world.  I know the rest of the story, mostly.  Where it goes from here, and how it ends from here.    

 Is it ever OK to read someone's diary?  She never threw it away, but I don't know if I will ever read its entirety.  Somehow it needs to stay but its secrets need to stay secret.  The writing of a girl, a young person about to be thrust onto life's stage.  They say a lady has the privilege of changing her mind,  lying about her age, and it seems to me her secrets as well. 

 

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