In cleaning out an old box found in my closet, I discovered an old diary… er, journal to us men. I wrote it around 10 years ago during a time of turmoil in my life… I couldn’t do anything more than sit down to read it.

While the writings were about me, they were about another me, a past me. A me that was buried beneath the births of my children, a marriage, jobs, and other events. I sometimes miss that me… he was fun and interesting and a lot better looking, but he’s gone, and I’ve already mourned for him.

The diary was quite painful to read… and not because of the emotions it brought back up. You see, the emotions, along with the me that had them, were buried long ago, and it was actually the diary that helped dig the grave. The diary was my therapy session where I not only cataloged the daily issues, but the past ones as well. These were candid… real candid. But I had to write them in order to finally deal with them directly.

Of course I wish I hadn’t had those experiences and those emotions and those issues… but I did, and the diary was the first time I owned them… and consequently resolved them. I realized those issues weren’t unique. While they didn’t look normal, they didn’t look rare either… others had them as well.

But that doesn’t make them any less embarrassing. When I closed the book, I wondered if it wasn’t me who discovered the book, what would the person who did think of me? I know, vanity, but still… Obviously, I would appear far more human than I do now, but even if I was dead, my ashes would blush at the thought of someone reading this diary.

Ow, I really should have sat down in a chair to read this instead of just plopping down on the floor next to this box. I’m too old to read on such frail knees…

I then put the box away, and dropped the diary into the trash.