When I was a kid, I kept a diary for every day of my life from the time I was about seven and used to write what I wore to school every day (which was usually the same rotation every third day) until about my freshman/sophomore year of college. It was something I started young and did like clockwork.
Now I have a cedar chest full of at least 12 to 15 completely full diaries/journals. I get them out sometimes and Bianca and I will go through them, looking at the pictures. After she goes to bed, I'll get caught on a particular name or subject I'm interested in and can't put the diary down until I finish the entire thing. Sure, I'm embarrassed about a lot of the things I put in there. Did I really talk like that? Did I really think that way? It's embarrassing, but I'm still glad I have them.
I guess the appeal of the diary is living on, because on Saturday, Bianca yanked a dollar bill out of her piggy bank and asked if we could go to the dollar store.
"Sure. Where'd you get that dollar?"
"It was in my piggy bank."
"But where did you find it before it wound up in your piggy bank?"
"I don't know." I figured she had probably plucked it from Eric's stash of small bills and change from his night stand. Nonetheless, I told her that we could go to the dollar store before doing the rest of our errands.
So, we went and walked through the aisles. Bianca was convinced she wanted a diary, complete with a lock and keys. Some of my first diaries—the ones she was most interested in—had little locks and keys. Even though I doubted she's actually ready for a diary—she just started reading and writing earlier this year—but she latched on to a couple diaries.
Well, all the diaries were marked with special orange stickers that said $1.50. What kind of dollar store is this? I told Bianca—unfortunately as an employee from the dollar store walked by—that this store should be called the $1.50 store, instead of the dollar store, since everything was more than a dollar. But I decided I could run out to the car and grab an extra fifty cents.
She picked a "Finding Nemo" diary with lock and keys, that also came with an address book.
Later that day, as we were waiting for our lunch at Iggy's, she pulled out her diary and said, "Mom, you cannot look." Much too adamantly. Every time my eyes were remotely close, she'd get frustrated and remind me that it's none of my business.
She was concentrating very hard. Then she asked, "Mom, how do you spell birthday?" Trying my best not to look over at her page, I spelled it out. Several moments later, she asked again, "How do you spell garage?"
I can respect her right to privacy. My mom never got into my diary when I was a kid. I knew she wouldn't because she repeatedly told us how her mother used to go through her purse, looking for letters and stuff, and how angry it used to make her. (On the other hand, I had several boyfriends who used to check on my loyalty by perusing the pages of my diary, which is ultimately why I stopped writing in one in college. Now the only diary I keep is my blogs, open to the world.)
I'll try to give Bianca the privacy she desires. But for now, because she doesn't know how to write most words on her own and she's asking me how to spell them, it's easy to deduce what she's writing about. Her age makes it hard to give her the privacy a diary requires.
