Dear Die

[January 3, 1858 or 1985. Written at home, in my house.]

Hi Die,

It’s another one of those days, yes, it is. It has been. So much so that it’s got my grammar a little twisted. Maybe my dates, too. So whether I’m up or down, it’s my obligation to write in you, to you. What might happen to that obligation if I were to lose your key I don’t like to think about, so I don’t use it. I don’t lock you. Up. 

I tell myself this lack of a key is my way of letting you be free, letting you say what you think and feel. You can say what maybe I’m incapable of expressing. 

Today I'm down, and it's all just so depressing. Today, in fact, I don’t like you a whole lot because I don’t like me a whole lot. That's because you have yet to turn what I’m writing with - this fluid I'm using and which just flows out of my mouth without stopping - into invisible ink. I need you to be able to do that. Work your magic. I have faith in you, for some reason. A diary is a girl's best friend, I've heard them say. Is that true? 

I need you.

Let me pour out my thoughts, which right now feel like oceans of furry air. Afterward, I am begging you to clean up after me. Disappear my words. Let me go, in a word. Let me push all of them out, not in the bad sense, but because of this need I have to talk to someone. Nobody wants to hear these words, much less record them. I am a document without a country. Which is worse than the man without a country they made us read in high school and I never liked because there are women in the same boat but nobody thinks about them.

By the way, the story about that man is horrific. You might wish to look it up some time, but I advise against it. The words that are being offered to you are sincere, but might be upsetting. I wouldn't want them to hurt you. Words should never hurt you, my friend. 

[And now I’ve used the word word several times in a row, which is abysmally bad style, but it often happens when one writes in a diary. We don’t plan out what we’re going to say. We just run off at the mouth, or pen, and record things we’d be ashamed to leave behind if we were to drop dead the next day. I hope I don't but one never knows.]

[January 7, 1858 or 1985. Written at home, in my house.]

Good morning.

Down in the dumps with you, Die, and I really want to. Don't think it's your fault.

The reason I’m saying these things is that I don’t have a reason to go on, although I hate to put it in that clichéd way. I could just die. Yes, you know what I mean. I want to. But you already know that, too. In fact, you seem to know a whole lot about me. Please don’t judge me because I confide in you so much, and so I describe for you all my dirty laundry and all the thoughts I never told at the confessional (because I neither go to confession nor am Catholic). I bare my soul with you, looking at your pages with nothing on them as if they were human. It’s your responsibility to write them down, is it not?

[...]

Well, this session doesn’t seem to be going all that well, or at least not as well as I’d hoped, so I’ll be back tomorrow to see how it goes. Or if not tomorrow, then next Friday. Soon, at least. Hopefully you will respond.

[February 13, 1868. Or 1968. Still writing in my house, sitting by the window, watching the squirrels and woodpeckers.]

I’ve been thinking - which explains why I didn’t back to you right away, Die - we may be in a love-hate relationship. You are always at my disposal, but sometimes it feels like you are too willing to listen and it makes me feel nervous. It's that fear I have when my whole soul is being tossed out there for everybody to see and read. That’s what makes things seem ambiguous. 

It's not that I'm an open book nor am I looking to make you into one. Yet I need you, I recognize your capabilities, despite the fact that I feel vulnerable when I am filling your pages with me, with bits and pieces of myself. Some of my words and torrents, if taken out of context, might create the wrong impression. I couldn't bear having you think ill of me. You are pretty much all I've got, Die. 

[...]

Despite my insecurities, I have you in front of me on this little desk by the window and see all your strength, your open arms, your willingness to be here. And I feel compelled to approach you because I'm dying to tell you things I wouldn't tell another soul. You accept everything I have to offer. There’s a reason for that, of course. Not everybody can understand our relationship.

You and I both know the old saying, “Paper can hold it all.” It’s an old saying in Spanish at least; I don’t know a good equivalent in English. Write your heart out, broken or not, and it won’t ruin the paper. That’s what I interpret it to mean. Just put it all down on paper. And whatever you do, don't try looking up the translation online because none of them are any good. All you need to know is that paper is strong. It might also be indifferent to what you might want to write on it, but it can handle everything a person wants to throw at it.

That concept of how you can put anything on paper has gotten complicated now. That's because so many people rarely use paper nowadays and are confused by that expression “El papel lo aguanta todo.” They don't write. They type, or use a keyboard. They think of the Cloud as their paper. They worry that somebody might hack their account. Nobody hacks a diary. Even blogs are pretty much free from abuse by readers. Bloggers are not the same as the people who keep diaries.

[Note that the above portion of this entry could not actually have been written, since the Cloud is from the twenty-first century. This anomaly is something that should be investigated.]

I'm done for the day, it seems. I didn’t manage to pull off what I’d planned, what I'd hoped to write. My heart is not on my sleeve nor among your pages. I swallowed it whole. Still, I’m still grateful for the opportunity to open up and say what I think. That doesn’t mean I want to keep on living, Die my friend, because I don’t think I do. Want to. 

[January 28, 1868 or 1995. Written at home, in my house. Still.]

I'm kind of losing track of time. Or just kind of lost. Have given up giving my words to the world that is really only you because only you hear them. They flutter and expire as I turn your pages, but like a sparkler that lasts a minute, they dissipate. I write, you record, you read my words back to me as if they were your own.

Let your words succumb there, Die, in that space that exists between us. It's the thoughts that count. That’s what everyone says and that’s why I have you. I can lay my words to rest in you, let them die among your pages. Nobody needs to know about that night in 1976 when we went swimming in the moonlight and nothing happened but you cried real, black tears. I just hated myself for even trying.

[March 25, 1888 or 1997. Written at home, in my house. Some things never change.]

I will find a different way to do what needs doing and will have you in front of me, in my hands. These are good deaths: between the sheets - of paper, not of cotton - or contemplating them in closed position. The pages will be in the shape of a rectangle bed where I can rest forever. I truly am not long for this world, but the next? What will I do there? I haven't the slightest idea what my life should have been like. I only had you to guide me and you tried, you really did, but like me, you have your limits.

Are you mortal or not? 

[April 19, 1899 or 2001. Written at home, at my desk.]

Die, you know what I’m talking about. Help me out here. I'm struggling to catch my breath and tell you what I think. I've run my fingers over your cover until it's worn and old-looking. I didn't wish that on you, getting old. No diary should have to look in the mirror and feel wrinkled, useless, something to be tossed. No human, either, but I'm realizing now that more humans are thrown in the trash than diaries. Dead words matter more to researchers than dead humans. Words are worth something, but people who have expired and can no longer speak? Their bodies are worth a whole lot less than the journals and other things they wrote.

[May 17, 1863 or 1885. July 25, 2022. Written somewhere in my house. I don't remember any more.]

We have been friends for a long time, Die, and I have been only moderately faithful. Yes, I've tried to keep up with the entries, but like I said years and words ago, life has its ups and downs and mine has been mostly the latter. It was my sincere hope that you could pull me out of my doldrums, after which I could share happy thoughts with you. However, I couldn't find any. I fell in love but lost that. I had a family, but lost that. I tried being an artist, but that was also a wasted effort because all I could do was paint purple cows and somebody had already done that.

It's beginning to look like we must come to a parting of the ways. I would appreciate it if you would advise me on this so I'll know if my decision is correct, if I should cut the ties that bind us.

Except you won't. Your place has been to listen and preserve it all. All the things you've heard and some you just surmised. I know you've tried, but I'm through. Trying. Which means there is only one final thing we must do. We need to decide who will go first. If I do, then either they will throw you in the trash or they'll read you and gasp. They will see what you've been hiding and rush to show the world. That would kill me.

If, on the other hand, I make the decision to kill you before going off to greener pastures or potato patches, then I need to decide how to do that with tenderness and respect. I might throw you into the fireplace or place you on the rack for the barbecue pit. If you leave any ashes, I can scatter them in Maine and on a distant shore, in a place I love, far from my desk and this window. You are so close to being human that you deserve it. 

Dear Die. Never forget what we've shared and what we might have been if we hadn't had so much life between us trying to fit into your pages. You know too much about me.

[March 31, 1858 or 2022. Written at home, and it's raining.]

Please God, don't let anybody read what Die has written. 

Adeus.