I always get slightly uncomfortable when I hear they are publishing someone’s diaries.  With the controversial release of Carl Jung’s The Red Book, I am confronted with what to do with the growing piles of journals I have held onto throughout the years.

The Red Book is part journal and part mythical fiction – a record of Jung’s fantasies and hallucinations during what some people would label Jung’s psychosis.  Jung kept his Red Book well protected under lock and key throughout his life yet left no instruction with what to do with it after he died.  His family found the ramblings and strange drawings in the Red Book intensely private and kept the book away from the public eye since his death in 1961. Some believe the book should not be published because it has the potential to so severely change our views of Jung that his widely popular theories may be simply dismissed as the musings of a complete psychopath.  Some believe the book is filled with infinite wisdom.  Either way, I want to read it.

Call me morbid but I fear that I will die in some freak accident and then everyone will read my journals and then totally have their perception of me forever altered for the worse.  By everyone I mean my family, my loved ones – the people that care so much about me.

Perhaps they will be forever haunted by all the harsh words I have written over the years.  Maybe they would now view me as this angry, bitter, and depressed little bitch rather than simply believing that I had used my journal to vent my frustrations and work through my feelings.  I rarely journal about how much I love people and all the good things that have happened in my life – maybe I should start.

This fear is so strong that I have had my boyfriend swear that if anything ever happens to me the first thing he will do is toss out my stack of weathered journals.

Why do I hang on to them?

Maybe I just like having the records of my life experiences; maybe I just can’t throw anything out.  Maybe I am still look for meaning in all the pain I have experienced throughout the years; maybe I am still working through some things and think some of those old thoughts can help.  Maybe I want a measure of my growth and emotional maturity; maybe on some unconscious level I want someone to read them – maybe I want my loved ones to know about all those inner demons I have struggled so deeply with.

Maybe I think that through them is the only way to get to know me – as the Indigo Girls describe in their song Virginia Wolf, “but they’ll sweat in their hopelessness in the rage we’re all the same the men of anger and the women of the page they published your diary and that’s how I got to know you.”

Whenever I am dealing with change, whether it be the end of a relationship or simply packing up my belongings and moving on, I love reading through these old journals and reflecting and weeping about the past.  I like to be reminded that at one point my life was simple, like at age 8 my journal entries usually went like this – Dear Diary, Woke up, went to school, had tater tots at lunch – they were good. And then there was high school and pages and pages of angst with lots of references to Alanis Morisette lyrics and then I laugh and am happy as hell that I never have to go through that again.  And then there are the 20’s and when things really get crazy.  And now I am almost a year into my 30’s and my tone has changed and oh how I hope it will last.

And then I wonder – will our grandchildren get to know us by reading ancient facebook posts and blog ramblings.  Our future generations will have so many more snippets – is that good or is that bad?  I feel like that there won’t be as many questions since we now seem to spew every thought that comes our way.  Sylvia Plath’s journals were so cryptic and we are now so transparent.

And I am still wondering what to do with those stacks and stack of journals.  Burn them, read through them and cut out all the best pieces and glue into a new journal and trash the rest, maybe scan them and leave them password protected somewhere, or just keep them as is.

What do you do with your old journals?