I started my very first diary at the age of 8. My mom brought back a very pretty book that has pictures of cute blond kids on each page. She gave it to me and asked me to record the things I did. It was written in Chinese because I went to Chinese Primary School but it was basically a record of things I did in a day... including what I ate for breakfast, lunch and dinner! But it last for a couple of years only.
And then at standard 6, I was given a second diary - a green cover one with the title `Youth Diary' - but I only really started wrting when I was about 13 and on the verge of entering teenage years.. Then I was penning not just on what I did but more on affairs of the heart - rant on how I felt about certain things.. I only wrote when there were things I wanted to write about and yes, my diary was like a closest friend who knew all my darkest sercrets..
This second diary covered a span of six years - saw me through all the joy, tears and angst of a youn girl - right till I completed form five in a boarding school in Singapore.
When I was stuying A Levels back in KL, I began my third diary which has a less childish design. It has purple cover and is called `High Frontier'. It chornicled my life from college to second year of university. Among the entries I wrote was the time I accepted Jesus into my life..and my baptism a year later.. all the while I was still writing in Chinese (believe it or not!?)
My fourth diary was a Monet diary - with `Waterlily' on the cover. I think I bought it from the National Art Gallery in London. It covered four-and-a-half year of some highlights of my life - from graduation to my first job back in Malaysia, as well as the ups-and-down of my bittersweet first relationship..
Then the next diary, which saw me writing increasingly in English, also lasted another four-and-a-half year. The last entry was written on my 30th birthday (yes i know by writing post i'll more or less give my age away but it's ok..) Amidst happenings at work and elsewhere was also heartbreak that came with another relationship.. At the same time, I also started a `spiritual journal' of which was like a prayer and conversation with God..
My sixth and last diary was a gift from my sis from England that featured a beautiful purple flower on the cover. It is unfinished. The last entry was dated December 31, 2004.
Since the turn of the millenium, the frequency of me writing in my diary had really dwindled.. so has my passion in keeping the journal. There were just three or four entires in 2002-2003; and only two in 2004.
And guess what? in May 2005, I started this blog and had been blogging regularly since.. taking up much more time than I did when I was writing diary spontaneously..
It's kinda strange ain't it?
Well you can call a blog an online-diary of sort but it is a `diary' that is organised and sanitised.. I can't express my deepest and truest emotions or rant nonesensically because I have `audience'! Whereas with a `hardcopy' diary, I know it is a place safe for me to pour out all my feelings deep down and only God and myself would know..
But yet, I am more inclined to blog than to write diaries anymore! Am I becoming mechanical and detached from my own feelings?
Another thing that strikes me as is that I can no longer `write' competently.. I type. Yep, I am so reliant on the computer that I find it hard to write an article with pen and paper..
It's sad in a way what technology has done to me.. and maybe to you as well.
But, my five diaries (plus the very first one that I have kept somewhere else) are still my very treasured posessions. I can from time to time read back something that happened 20 years ago in nostalgia..
Also, they're permanent. I'm not sure whether Blogger is...
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