Dear Diary

I started a new diary this week. This is of no importance to the world at large, but it keeps me happy to know that book 21 of my jottings has begun.

I've been keeping it solidly now since 1995. I'd flirted with keeping one before that. I managed the whole of 1991, which remains the epic tale of one 15/16 year olds' struggle against the world (or else a whiney series of writings on how unfair life was). I'd tried to keep one for my first year at university in Sheffield too, but that was doomed as I met new friends and my life became busier than ever before. However, well into my second year I'd decided it was time to try again. I bought the first of the many red books (I've always, wherever possible, tried to write in the same style of book... anally retentive you see) and so it began.

It's interesting looking back at those early days. Every day is lovingly recorded in insane detail and its a lovely snapshot of how things were then. I lost my way for a while and had a break and returned to it in my final term at Sheffield. I haven't had a break since. Its charted my final days in Sheffield (including the tv movie, my results, my finals, my fits and my friends) and into the desperately dull days before I had a job. There wasn't a great deal going on then, but each day was still recorded in great detail.

As I entered work the entries have become more sporadic, but I hope still interesting. My life took off in various ways around this time, and my coming out and all its various crisis's are recorded, though the day my Dad caught me at it with another guy somehow failed to make it in there. I miss one of them though, which an ex of mine kept after our break up. I hope he's got it safe... its like a whole missing chunk of my life!

Of course, as Dave Lewis said, you only keep a diary because you want it to be read, and yet somehow you don't want it to be read either. Its an insanely private experience, as biased as you want it to be and very much centred around the person writing it. I sometimes wonder how I can keep it fresh and keep going, but its not a worry really. As long as things keep happening to me, I keep on writing. Its as simple as that. I use my diary to help me. It keeps me sane because writing about the things that happen to me helps me think about them. The things I've worked out along the way haven't always been good, but once you realise you can start doing something about them.

So I keep on writing. Who knows what book 21 will contain? That remains to be seen!