Conversations with myself.

I find myself writing much more frequently to this blog than to my diary. I like that way of saying it, "writing to", rather than "writing for" or simply just "writing" because it often feels like a conversation. I guess all writing is. I may not get a reply in return, or know who it is I am writing to, how large or (let's be realistic) how small the number of recipients is, but I know that in some way I am having a conversation.

In some sense my diary is also a kind of conversation, but with myself. I write to my future self and to the imagined self I address every time I start an entry. Maybe I even write to children who don't exist yet who might find the diaries when I am long gone, in a kind of narcissistic, morbid way. But I write much more carelessly because the audience or the recipient of that conversation is far away or even entirely imaginary. And now I am writing more and more infrequently because I don't have much to say or I find it boring, sometimes, to list the goings on in my life. I have noticed that when I am sad or distressed I have a lot to say to myself, but when I am happy I don't feel the need to explain or describe it all. Maybe I have grown out of it. Maybe I don't want to face a writing which is so secretive and honest because I don't want to find something in my subconscious which is unhappy.

I write this blog with honesty as well, but in a much more structured way. I think a lot more about what I am going to say, I want it to be written well, I want it to be understood. It is not an incessant record of heartbreak or frustration or confusion. It is a much more interesting conversation, even if I might really be having it with myself.

I suppose the other reason for writing a diary is to remember things you might otherwise forget. But sometimes I don't want to force myself to remember pain, and sometimes I am having so much fun, or I am so contented, that I don't want to come out of the moment and write for a future self I do not know.

But I will always want to remember the thoughts I had when writing to this blog. Often it is braver, more interesting, more telling, than the private things I can only tell myself. It is much less lonely, I suppose, to write to another reader. And no matter whether they respond directly to me, knowing my words are taken in, knowing I am part of a larger conversation than my own, is an undeniable comfort.