Lisa: The Inside Story

Dear Diary,

Page one of a new diary . . . what a big event! Especially since I haven't written in months and months. I know I used to write almost every day, but somehow I've gotten so busy I almost forgot I ever had a diary. That's going to change. I really want to start writing regularly again, once a week at least. That's why I spent most of my allowance buying this new diary.

Actually, at first I was just going to start again in my last diary. But when I dug it out of my desk drawer, I remembered one of the reasons I put it away in the first place. My brother Peter sent it to me for my birthday last year, and Peter's so much older than I am that I guess he thinks I haven't changed at all since he left for college. I mean, the last time we saw each other every day, I was still wearing pigtails and playing with dolls and stuffed animals, so he must have thought that diary would be right up my alley. I would never want to hurt his feelings by saying so, but I don't think fluffy kittens with big blue eyes and bonnets on their heads were ever up my alley. I mean really!

Anyway, that's why I went out and bought this new diary yesterday. But the reason I got inspired to start writing again in the first place was a magazine article I read a couple of days ago. It was called "Life Journals" and it was about people who keep really good diaries. One of the people in the article was a middle-schooler like me, but most of the others were adults. The article was really interesting-a lot of the people have been keeping journals and diaries since they were kids, and they love looking back over the years and remembering their lives that way. Some keep journals all the time, while others like making scrapbooks for big vacation trips or other important events, like weddings and stuff.

The most interesting part, though, was that a lot of the people go beyond just writing down what happened to them that day. For instance, this one woman has a big, oversized diary, sort of like a photo album. She writes in it a couple of times a week, plus she pastes in things to help her remember all the interesting things she does from day to day-she's saved napkins from nice restaurants, movie ticket stubs, letters from friends, play programs, snapshots, even her dog's obedience-school diploma! She's really creative about finding ways to remember the little things that are pretty easy to forget.

I think I want to do something like that, too. I'll probably skip the snapshots (I have my photo album for that already), and I doubt Dolly will be getting a diploma anytime soon (though Mom keeps threatening to send her to doggy detention if she digs up the petunias one more time), but I'm going to try to paste in any other things that seem interesting and will help me remember. I can at least put in letters (not that I get that many) and maybe print out some e-mails from my friends (though I may have to edit some of the longer horse-related ones from Carole, unless I want to buy a new diary every week! Ha ha!).