Before random meals became Instagram sensations and every feeling seemed worthy of a Facebook post, there were diaries. The standard issue, mostly owned by young girls, featured a clasp that locked the covers tight, and a tiny key that could only safeguard secrets in fairytaleland. I, a teen with three younger siblings and a mother with porous boundaries, invested instead in a combination lockbox. In this box, I filed evidence of personal milestones, some photos, and my FCC Broadcasting License. Most important, the lockbox guarded records of my innermost thoughts.
One diary I kept to inform my adult self of my growing up years. With a purpose beyond that of merely chronicling the mundane, it was my anchor in uncertain times. A second diary, though, I had quite forgotten. This pocket spiral, penned in even blue cursive writing, logged a month spent during my last January term of college. On an internship, far from friends and family, I delved deep into the world of Washington politics.
I telephoned my college senior son, excited to roll back my life clock and share with him what things had been like when I was at exactly the point where he is today. I regaled him with stories from that little diary: the isolation of weekends, loosely connected by thin friendships forged at the off ice; how my colleagues and I had made the repeated treks to Capitol Hill with mimeographed surveys; endless interview calls to off ice aides, and the thrill of speaking with the occasional representative or senator. Once the data was collected, how we tabulated results by hand. Reading aloud rows of numbers, hours dragged, the typewriter’s tap our only companion as we recorded our results.
My son was confounded. Computers had been his constant, their absence as alien to him as living pre-television would seem to me. Though this was not news, the diary’s voice touched us both.
Dear diary, this was a special day.
