#11.2

I've kept a diary at various points in my life, though I was never very good at putting anything of meaning in it. Writing about myself, even when it was for myself, didn't sit well with me. I felt like I had to edit everything to perfection -- events recounted exactly as they were, each emotion enumerated just so on the page -- so that I could relive moments whenever I needed to. Word choice was meticulously scrutinized. Spelling was checked and double-checked. Handwriting was touched up to look its sharpest.

At the same time, there were certain things that I always refused to commit to paper, whether out of denial, paranoia, or simple distaste. I could never admit to spending time with family, to being attracted to another person, to sitting for classes or working a steady job. They were arbitrary things that I just left out even if I wanted to say something about them, motivated by a misplaced self-control that I could have left for when I actually needed to fake appearances for someone who didn't already know everything that I was trying to hide.

My last journal met a sudden end about two years ago, when I realized that I was no longer doing anything but writing rote, unimportant facts in the lines drawn on long-dead processed wood. Frustration and impatience drove me to tear out all of the pages in the notebook and feed them through a shredder, one after the other. Everything that I thought I was inscribing for a lifetime of reading and rereading turned into a pile of incomprehensible scraps at the bottom of a trash bin.

Today, though, I'm going to start over.