The Diarist

Months ago, I picked up a copy of Sylvia Plath’s diary. I am someone who loves “The Bell Jar” and considers it to be an incredible study of mental illness and the struggle to get past one’s darkest thoughts. The allusion present in the title is even more impressive in how it comes to reflect the suffocation one feels when they’re meant to be observed but never engage with the outside world. It’s a feeling that I’m sure Plath knew well. I say “sure” because I am not her biographer. I haven’t studied much of her life story and remain on the lookout for a book of her poetry to be on sale.

But it was in reading her diary that some things became clear. It was this clear, succinct portrait of a young woman who was coming to terms with her changing place in life. Along with the blossoming of her creative potential, she was observing the world around her and discussing the value of certain institutions. At the time of writing this, I had finished reading a passage on religion and the duality of life. We need joy and sadness to coexist. We can’t have friends without enemies. Why is everything like this? Plath has a level of articulation that I envy even now, roughly two decades removed from the age she was when she wrote those words.

More than anything, it made me realize that I wanted to put more work into keeping an active diary. When I was originally envisioning SCRAPS!, I perceived writing something similar to this as my origin post. However, that’s not how things went, and everything got pushed back. I was more focused on reading Charles Dickens’ “Bleak House” at the time, and thus had forgotten why I wanted to rebrand my personal blog. It wasn’t just to remove the sense of checkmarks that defined my work in the past decade, but it was to try and capture feelings that were closer to something genuine, that I wouldn’t feel obligated to just take down after a few months because it all felt too redundant.

Another thing that felt alarming when reading Plath’s diary is how she doesn’t have a prompt nature. When she writes, it’s clearly in conversation with herself, and there’s no need for her to address a larger public. My concern is that at some point in my late teens, my voice became self-conscious, and even when I write a diary, I am writing as if somebody has pried their eyes on my private thoughts, and I need to explain myself. I would love to write like everything is understood, that the implication isn’t the need to defend or act like this is some script that needs sensibility. 

Reading Plath, I realize that not having a formed voice allows you to be more rudimentary. She has a voice. I’m willing to bet a lot of this was edited for clarity because I know that I wasn’t this “clean” when I was her age. Maybe it’s because I wrote in large volumes, but editing missed a lot of my mind. It was more about getting something out there. I imagine it’s more foolish because Plath had a notebook. I have a Word document where I could remove words in a matter of seconds. What was my point in making my public image so frayed with mistakes?

I think on some level, the pro and con of my writing style is that I am impulsive. I need to clear my head to feel some relief. The issue is that I believed early on that my writing didn’t appeal to anyone, and thus, the level of candidness could shoot me in the foot if I truly wanted it to. I’m sure that Plath did as well, but when you remove her from her own equation, it’s easy to see this as a powerful study of experiencing the typical emotions of being young and longing for greater connection. If anything, her prose feels more intellectual and something that I frankly wish I carried more. As someone who wasted quite a few years in college, I’m not exactly the best diarist to compare to.

There’s also the reality that I am self-conscious about documentation and needing to provide some clue that I was here. This diary gives me a sense of who Plath is, and I love it when she really locks into an idea. I’m unsure how much my writing will mean. It’s now thousands of articles, several short stories, and a few novels to share with the general public. There’s a lot to scrutinize me with, but is it enough? 

The good news is that as the second month of SCRAPS! comes to an end, I am still relieved to have these personal essays to vent. I am capturing some element in a manner that I feel reflects where I am now. For me I want to believe that I’ll see it in a decade or two and be surprised by what I said. There’s been constant concern that I was a dumber, less engaged person in the past. However, every now and then, I read some of my most genuine diary entries and realize that… no, I’ve always held certain worldviews. Some of them you cringe and wish that you could tell that person to go a different path, but that’s life. 

But why do I feel the need to act like this is some act of communication? It could be that my blog writing was inspired by Kevin Smith and Diablo Cody, two writers who on Myspace wrote to an audience. It could be because that’s where the modern style of prose has reached. There is a need to engage. I almost envy the former generations who didn’t have to believe that their diaries would be pried from their possession and be scrutinized. It could be genuine. But then again… am I being genuine here? I believe I am, but will I look at this in a decade and realize some insincerity that I couldn’t in the moment?

In short, I am enjoying Plath’s diaries, and it’s making me think about the value of documentation and doing so in a passionate way. Maybe keep certain flaws in the vault, but having a resource of who you are will make a significant difference when you’re older and lose touch with who you are. There is a need to remember where things changed and what you felt at different times. As school has suggested to me, we have one life. You’ll never be this age again. Write with the arrogance of that age and try to find some greater meaning in those words. It may amount to nothing, but I want to believe everything leads to something. Maybe it’s just a better mood for one night. Who knows. Plath’s work is largely mundane and explains why it’s taken me a long time to get through. However, it gives me this sense of who she is and why we create. It’s to figure out the greater idea of what we do with our free time.

It may be why the past few years have been among the most rewarding for me as a writer. It’s not so much that I have gotten the most money or acclaim, but that I have these elements that speak to who I am now. This is what I want to remember about this time. I love having that to fall back on. It’s better than recognizing my younger self, who was writing for writing’s sake, and then you end up with a lot of hollow opinions you don’t find interesting. I won’t call everything that I’ve written since 2020 masterpieces, but there have been a lot more revelations than I had in the period before. 

More than anything, keeping a diary shows you signs of what you want. It’s not always evident when you’re staring at the entire collage. Sometimes you need to rip it out of your cranium and look at it up close, to the point that every word is scrutinized and questioned. The sooner you can do that with humility, the sooner you may stand to live a fulfilling life. I’m not entirely where I want to be, but having this road map of where I was will hopefully make a difference when all is said and done. I don’t expect my musings to be published like Plath, but I’m sure someone will find some of it and be appreciative that I existed, or maybe that’s just me.