Where Would I Be Without You

Dear Diary,

I don’t know how to tell you this. I feel like I can’t type the thought out, can’t even form it in my mind. 

But I have to tell someone.

I haven’t written to you in probably decades, not since my teens when you were a flowery journal with a lock, and I doodled pictures of horses and cats inside the front cover. My entries then were all about surviving teenage angst and loneliness, raging against rules and unfairness and homework, avoiding bullies and responsibilities.

Now you’re a plain untitled document and I’m a plain middle-aged woman. If I were to write to you daily as I used to, my entries now would be about surviving mid-life angst and social-media-induced loneliness, raging against bills and perimenopause and stacked health crises, confronting political bullies and never-ending family responsibilities.

You haven’t changed much on the inside, ivory ruled paper and multicolor pens have given way to a cursor bathing in its electronic glow, but still the same intimidating blank pages, waiting to devour my thoughts.

The essence inside each of us is perhaps the same as before but oh how the covers have changed.

I used to dance and sing, now the music I make is the sound of my knees popping as I walk upstairs. You used to make pleasant rustling sounds and the scritchy-scratch of pen on paper when I turned your page and wrote another line. I gave you my fears and dreams and realities, and you imprisoned them in an inky cage, making me feel safe from them. Now there is the clicking of keys mimicking the clicking of my knees, and silence as I scroll downwards. Do pixels contain thoughts as well as ink? Who’s to say.

They told me I needed a biopsy – no, I can’t give you that part yet. I’m not ready.

I miss the music of the pages, just as I will miss the dancing of my youth, and I’ll even miss the creaking of my aging joints. For I fear there will be no more stairs for me. I never would’ve thought I could miss stairs. I’ll even miss dishes. Barely, but still.

I digress, of course, for who would not digress at a moment like this? A few more thoughts poured into your open pages, a few more moments here with you.

My life has been adventurous but I have many regrets. Marrying that obnoxious British guy in my twenties, for one. 

Why is the screen so bright?

Not taking life seriously, for another. Scratch that – humor and frivolity are the only things that make life liveable. I’d rather laugh through a short life than grimace through a long one. Though preferably, I’d want to laugh through a long life.

We don’t always get our preferences.

I used to write to you about my hopes for the future. What are your hopes for the future? If you had a choice, would you take these thoughts from us petty humans, record them for us, protect us from them? Or would you have your own thoughts? I fear you are close to that reality and I know that there’s nothing I can do about it. Mad scientists are gonna science.

There are many things I don’t regret. My children – no I can’t go there yet, either.

I rode fresh, energetic horses in the mountain valleys, sprinting as fast as they wanted, no control just wind streaking by so fast it left tears in my eyes. I learned to cook ratatouille.

They said I needed an MRI.

I read thousands of good books and hundreds of bad ones. Saw a lot of movies and only regret a few, mostly the ones that I watched without a dachshund in my lap. Tasted fresh-made chocolate eclairs and my mom’s lasagna.

Strange, my keys aren’t making clicking noises anymore. 

Went to college, earned three degrees, hiked the Narrows in Zion, traveled to Europe and Asia, almost became fluent in German. Finished the saying: “Dogs have owners, cats have staff, and (drum roll) . . . horses have grooms.” 

They said I needed surgery.

Nearly learned to play the guitar. Kinda sorta understood quantum physics (but not really). Coined this irritatingly appropriate collective noun: an “overflow” of water bottles.

Why is it so hard to breathe?

Studied philosophy and literature – would you like fries with that? Practiced law for a (relatively) short time – would you like a lawsuit with that? Ran a restaurant, a bakery, an inn, a horse-riding school, decided I was indeed an introvert, retreated from customer service, and dove into writing.

The pages swallowed me. Here I am, still pouring my soul into them as if I’ve made a deal with a demon – I’ll give you my soul in exchange . . . for what?

That was never clear. 

Immortality? 

Clarity? 

Why do we write? 

What is our side of the bargain? What do we get in return for our soul?

It’s getting a little urgent, and I kinda need to know. I don’t feel the keyboard beneath my fingers anymore. The words blur on the over-bright screen. What is that light?

Wait, where am I going?

No! Not there. Not yet. 

I’m not ready. 

I need to eat eclairs. Fight for social justice. Ride a horse on a wild gallop through a greying field on a cool autumn afternoon. I need to understand why the short and simple “pen” becomes the torturous kugelschreiber in German.

I need to hug my daughters, to be present for them in this overstimulated world. 

And yet, I don’t know if I can stay.

Goodbye, my lovelies. I love you girls more than life itself, and I loved life quite a lot.

I gasp and wake from the anesthesia, fingers still twitching, typing. 

I feel my soul returning to me. You’ve kept it all this time, not imprisoned in ink and pixels, but safeguarded for when you knew I’d need it most.

As soon as get my phone back and I’m able to focus, I tap out a message on the little on-screen keyboard:

Dear Diary,

Thank you for being there for me. I don’t know where I’d be without you.

I’ll write you again tonight, after I hug my girls and we make elaborate plans for eclairs and lasagna and riding horses in the mountains.

Love,

LJ