Hello, a magic trick

A little context and an Indiana Jones-style stride into the unknown

The thing about reading over my old diaries is that it’s always felt like a kind of magic trick: one where I’m transported back to the past so effortlessly that it can feel as real as the present. Or like it was all a moment ago, not decades ago.

In 2009, when I was 28, my lovely mum died, and the diaries I’d been keeping in a cupboard at her flat were suddenly back in my possession. I found a box strong enough for all 70-something books, brought them home with me, and stored them under my writing desk.

Here and there, I’d dip in to the box and read bits and pieces of the past.

It was a comfort and a challenge.

Familiar and surprising.

Delightful and embarrassing.

For example:

“Let” him read my poems — how generous of me and what a treat!

(G, if you’re reading — this was about YOU.)

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I started writing in 1992 when I was 11 years old, but things really went up a notch in terms of output when I hit the teenage years. I’d write page after page after page, usually late at night when the rest of the house slept, but sometimes in the morning before school, or when I got home if I felt that something especially important or exciting had happened.

I documented, reflected, analysed, planned, ranted, hoped and dreamt all on the pages of my diary. 

Who was I writing to?

I’ve often wondered that. Was it a version of me, a future me? I think that’s possible. There was a sense that I’d want to remember ‘all of this’ some day.

And it was therapeutic, too. When something good happened, I’d look forward to writing about it and then reading it, because again, the re-reading offered a kind of magic: I could re-experience anything wonderful that happened to me whenever I wanted to, all because I’d written about it. Even if it had only happened the week before, I could go right back to that moment.  

And if something difficult happened, writing about it would ease it, or release it. Or, it would just allow me to feel it, then perhaps make sense of it. So many times I’d begin an entry upset, and half way through I’d remark that I was starting to feel better.

In essence, the process of writing my diary was somehow sacred and also essential to me. It felt like part of who I was, just a fact.

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As you might already know, I’ve dabbled with sharing bits and pieces from my diaries on social media over the years, and I’ve made zines about them too, but I’ve always had this sense that there could be a bigger project within all of this.

I’m not sure exactly how that will form or come into being, so I'm doing that Indiana Jones thing of taking the first step and letting the path form beneath me.

One thing I know for sure is we have big opportunities for cringing ahead of us.

For example, here I am, age 11, looking forward to a school trip to a power station:

That’s a gentle cringe, really. I actually think it’s kind of sweet.

Until next time — in which I’ll be sharing what I think is my first recorded case of writer’s block, as I desperately try, age 11 again, to find the right words to express how much I love our local paper.

Thank you for being here and going on this journey with me — I promise it will be a fun and sincere one.

Teresa x

PS: I would love this newsletter to grow as organically as possible, and word-of-mouth can really help with that! So if you know a person or two who you think would enjoy reading my teenage diaries, please consider telling them about it, maybe by forwarding this email or sharing the link.

Oh and if we’re not already friends on Instagram, add me to see behind-the-scenes diary stuff!