This is my collection of personal diaries, which are kept in a fire-proof box at my parents’ house. There is one for every year since 1996, and every single day’s entry has been completed in full, meaning around 10,000 days have been recorded among them. This only meant a few lines per day for the first four years, before an A5 page a day from 2000 onwards (I had no idea what to do with all that additional space to start with, but made it my mission to fill it up somehow, and once I’d started with that, didn’t want to break the sequence). I was inspired to start keeping a diary by my mum, who has religiously kept a diary for decades too.

My diary collection is one of my most valuable and precious material possessions. They are deeply personal, but I’ve often been happy to share excerpts with friends and family upon request, particularly the more historic they become! Many of their own memories are captured in there too, and often this includes things they had long forgotten about. As well as being an outlet for me each day, this is one of the diaries’ most important purposes. They ensure the preservation of special moments, special people and special things. Of course, there’s a lot of not so nice or more mundane moments stored in them too, but even those help serve perspective when reading them back.

Back in January 1999 I was incredibly upset about the fact my group of school friends had had a falling out, because there were more of us than there were members in the band Steps, and this meant not everybody could take part in the talent show performance, leading to some people feeling left out, and arguments occurring. We laugh about it now. In 2001, a classmate borrowed my felt pens but didn’t put the lids back on after using them, and the nibs dried out. I’ve deliberately selected some of the silliest examples here to help illustrate a point, but still I look back and realise how fortunate I was that things like that represented my biggest concerns. Life before mortgages and MOTs.

A couple of years later I was scribing grumbles about having to go and visit my grandparents after a night of one too many cider ‘n’ blacks. And you know how it goes; I obviously read that back too and think about how much I’d love just to have the option to visit them now. Then there are frustrating accounts of entire days being too busy playing Mario Kart or chatting on MSN to complete an application to something that I’m fairly sure I would have loved to do. Unlocking Rainbow Road and discussing plans for a night out felt way more important at the time. There were far too many daylight hours at University that were spent sleeping or eating instant noodles, and not enough trips to the Lakes. I spent a whole afternoon of my 2010 Indonesia stint ferrying around the city trying to find somewhere to access the internet just so that I could read some emails that I can’t even remember who sent them now or if I even had any at all.

In the more recent years, the contrast isn’t quite as extreme. Progressively throughout adulthood we learn a bit more about who we are, and what our values are. I stopped having entire days in front of computer games many, many years ago (though I do still shamelessly enjoy the odd bit of Mario Kart!) and though it probably would still irritate me if somebody caused my pens to dry out by neglecting to replace the lids, I doubt I’d consider it noteworthy enough to scribe into my personal history anymore. But that said, there are still things I read back on that seemed like such a big deal at the time and now seem like nothing, and it’s always so interesting to see that.

Making the most of any given day and realising not to sweat the small stuff are two of the biggest things that keeping a daily diary has taught me, and I think those are two lessons that I’m happy to re-learn over and over from every single page.

One day I hope these books will be useful to somebody else too; how that’ll happen I’m not really sure, but even if they just give some descendants something to read for a bit and laugh over then I guess that’ll be something.

Song of the Day: Yamar – Dry Bread

A nice, Summery toe-tapper of a tune with Caribbean infusions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bx9P5lW2c5M