Dita Parker

Friday, February 21, 2020

Private emotion

Have you been to one of those events where people read out their teenage diaries, on a stage, in front of strangers? It’s a hoot and a howl, and you don’t laugh at the person doing the reading, you laugh at the undying, unwavering, long since deceased feelings and certainties you remember and recognize all too well.

Social media is communal but a diary is a private medium, should you feel you need a medium with an enhanced privacy guarantee. Depending on where you keep it and whether you mind or not that someone may stumble upon it and gasp gasp gasp read it, of course. Anyway…highly recommended. You don’t always know what you think and feel until you try to verbalize it. And that can be difficult. Something that requires utmost privacy and safety, and some issues and topics require more privacy and safety than others, and the internet is the antithesis of both. And certain matters require time and patience, but social media has neither. Plus, anything you say can and will be used against you in the court of public opinion.

But if you feel the need to unload without burdening your nearest and dearest (if they truly are near and dear they’d kick you for even thinking it’s a burden), if you’re in a vulnerable place and believe you can’t handle the fallout right now (and once you put it out there it's out of your control), if you don’t want to talk about it to anyone just now but need to record it so you don’t forget it, if you’ve been keeping secrets from yourself and are just beginning to come to terms, a diary, a private journal, will not judge you, pity you, berate you, or laugh at you. It will allow you to have your say; in peace, at your pace, in your own words.

No comments: