A Colourless Book

I began keeping a diary when I was 15 and with one or two lapses while I was a student, I have written an entry for each day of my life since. I am now quite obsessive about it. I used to write up the day’s events with a fountain pen but now I use a computer.

Why? If you were to ask me I couldn’t really tell you. Perhaps it is a way of taking control and making sense of the day’s events. I rarely look back over what I have written. 1980 was a very good year for me I remember, but I have little inclination to read what I did in June of that year. I find it reassuring to know it is written down however.

When an elderly relative dies the things they treasured often die as well. The photographs they kept show people we never knew with names that mean nothing to us. Objects may have been saved but their significance is lost. It can be terribly sad; however the shouts of children from another room keep the tears from our eyes.

I have no hopes for my diaries. I have called them colourless as they contain little that is not mundane. Eventually, on a day ablaze with colour someone I don’t know will decide to ditch them and I really don’t blame them. At the back of some cupboard in an unimaginable future someone will find the hard drives that were sentimentally kept but which can no longer be played.