Life of a Diary beyond the time of Lock and Key

I was recently reminded of the value, love value, of purging one's archives, notebooks long abandoned, of petty, peevish documentation of angst, descriptions of less than fine and happy hours, to not lay undue weight upon any hapless soul who is either mentioned, or otherwise identifiable, or even simply burdened with reading through the pages to determine if recycling is safe, or if a fire or shredder is necessary.

One suggestion was to carefully clip out worthy pages and reassemble them; a non-toxic diary? Hopefully I have only a few pages here and there that need redaction and all the rest could remain as spewed forth in their little paper jackets.

Blessed and saddled with papers from relatives I love beyond their earthly days, I'm not insensitive to the possible mixed blessings of documents left behind.

I expect I should at least check in and see how big of a project that would be. Usually what happens when I attempt to cull is that I get drawn in and marvel at my brilliance and stupidity. And some of my worst moments teach me the most. It's not a bad winter project, a New Year kind of project...as long as it takes me forward.

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