365 Days of Memories

I’ve tried to keep a diary my whole life. I have boxes and boxes of notebooks in my closet to prove it, dating as far back as grade school. None of them more than a quarter full. I start out strong and then drop off quickly. Maybe ten or twelve entries. But not 2017. 2017 is the first time I’ve ever successfully started and kept a daily diary for an entire year. I’m so proud of it I could throw up.

I knew last year was going to be different and that helped motivate me. My husband was diagnosed with cancer on December 31, 2016 — happy fucking new year — and we immediately braced ourselves for a year of intensive treatment. One of the most consistent pieces of advice I got was to write about what was happening. People recommended it as a way to communicate to loved ones who couldn’t be with us, to help me process everything that was going on, and to keep a record of what would likely be a dark and difficult time. I really wanted to, but for some reason I couldn’t get myself comfortable with it. I tried to start a dozen times, different platforms, different styles. How much information should I be sharing? Was it ok to sound as sad and pessimistic as I sometimes was, or did I have to pretend to be one of those endlessly optimistic cancer warriors? Did I have to write even when I felt terrible? I was too overwhelmed to figure it out. I might write about it all someday, but I couldn’t get it done this year.

I ended up with a paper solution, almost by default.

I had ordered a Moleskine daily planner (like this) at the beginning of December, before I had any inclination K was sick, in one of my overly optimistic, slightly manic One-Click moments (I would be mortified if anyone saw the length and variety of my Amazon order history), so it was already sitting on my desk ready when I thought that I might give the diary thing another shot. I started on January 1 and wrote an entry for almost every single day, right up to December 31. Because I wasn’t going to share it with anyone, I could be honest about how I was feeling and what was going on. There was no thinking required, I could just document my days.

Mostly I wrote brief notes about what was going on and how I felt about it. Sometimes it was just a laundry list of things about my day (“Hospital. Coffee. Brenda. Walked the dogs”). Sometimes I sketched, sometimes I painted, sometimes I printed out cheesy little photos on my inkjet printer. I wrote down a lot of quotes as I came across them, making it a little bit of an old-fashioned hand-written commonplace book.

August 9 & 10

March 18 & 19

January 1 & 2

September 8 & 9

December 27 & 28

Yesterday my 2018 planner arrived. Same format, different color. I hope this year is easier, and I hope I can keep up with the writing.