Diaries, Journals and other potentially embarassing items...

[Zookeeper]

So, you have a hunting date with Darth Cheney next week. There is a very good chance you may not come home alive.

Are you comfortable leaving your diaries, journals and other personal possesions around for your family to go through? Will you get rid of anything before your date with Dick?

How about all that bad poetry you wrote in college? The lame attempts at finding the meaning of life? Love letters? Bad music you'd never admit to owning?

[seemunkee]

1. You need a porn buddy

The friend that comes to your house when you die and removes all the porn before your (parents/wife/children) discover it.

[mikeytherat]

2. The Cleaner

Knows where all of the "naughty" stuff is and gets it out in times of need.

Friends who are naughty help other friends who are naughty.

mikey_the_rat

[Zookeeper]

3. Wow, yeah, if you have a porn collection that would be a...

very good idea. I have heard of friends having that sort of agreement.

[seemunkee]

4. I just have a collection of adult comics

which reminds me my buddy moved. Need to find a new one

[Zookeeper]

5. When I went away to college, I left behind my collection...

Of "Zap!" comics which contained some pretty raunchy R. Crumb stuff. And also a big stack of National Lampoon magazines.

I'm sure they really distressed my mother, especially because I'm female. They weren't there when I came home.

[skygazer]

6. I once found a note written by my then 16 year old daughter

I wasn't looking for it - it was on the floor face up and I happened to glance down and see that it referred to someone as a "fucking asshole". I took that opportunity to teach her a valuable lesson - I explained that I wouldn never purposely go through her stuff but one should never write anything or take a photo of something that they're not comfortable with other people seeing because, like it or not, sooner or later someone will.

I have personal stuff written but nothing that it would bother me if others read, particularly if I was dead. I won't allow a compromising photo to be taken of me and I won't commit truly private thoughts to either paper or computer. They can remain in my head. No one will ever be able to find their way through that tangled web.

[zanne]

7. After my mother-in-law died, we found her journal...

I was with my husband and my sister-in-law. We opened it and read about how much she disliked me. I had had no idea about this while she was alive. I wish we'd never found it. I learned from that. I don't write anything personal at all--I'd hate to have someone find it after I'm gone and have to feel the way I did.

[Zookeeper]

8. Ouch! That must have been very painful, especially...

if she went to the trouble of writing her feelings down. Did she die suddenly or do you think she may have time to think about what she wanted to leave behind?

[zanne]

13. She died tragically.

She fell down her cellar stairs and struck her head on the cement floor. My father-in-law was on the road at the time, and she was alone in their big old house in the country. She was found two days later. The revelations in her diary were a shock because I had thought that we were close; we did so much together that she was like a friend to me. I wish that we had never found the diary.

[SocratesInSpirit]

10. A similar thing happened to me

with a deceased step-relative that I had barely known, and I was very suprised and hurt by it. People really need to consider the impact that their journals will have on others.

[Ivan Sputnik]

14. Sometimes people use their journals

to discharge all their negative emotions and don't bother to write down the positive ones. Perhaps your mother-in-law's feelings for you were more mixed and complex than simple dislike. Just a thought.

[zanne]

15. That thought had entered my mind.

But I want to thank you for saying that. This happened 25 years ago, but it still hurts. Thanks.

[Nikia]

9. I want my journals and all my writings read when I am dead

Whether or not it was good writing or it expressed embarassing opinions. Maybe I am self centered in feeling this way, but it is all that people will have of me besides their memories. When the people who personally knew me are gone, there will only be a stone and a body left of me on this Earth. The people who we know who are long gone, are known by their words. When I am gone, I am not afraid for all or any part of me to be known.

[Radical Activist]

11. Exactly

I want mine to be used when someone writes my biography. How's that for conceited? hehe

[Zookeeper]

12. Shameless kick for the night crowd!

I really am interested in DUer's thoughts on this subject. :-)

[Atmashine]

16. ::blushes::

I'd hate someone to read my sekret crushes in my journal. But being dead maybe I won't care, my wife already knows I behaved myself around them, and unless they find me revolting it shouldn't hurt them.

Now, all that dirty pagan stuff I also have written down which especially my parents would hate...oh well. Maybe they'll learn something.

[WritingIsMyReligion]

17. Fuck it. I'll write as I wish in them.

They're mine, and one of the few things in this world that truly belong to me and no one else. I'm not going to stop writing how I feel, or owning things that I want, just because someone might see these things. Particularly if I'm dead.....I don't care then. I work out things by writing them down, that's just the way I am. End. of. story.

Sorry if that seems harsh. :blush: But it's so true.