Secrets

A girl I knew from childhood, a family friend, died last week. She was 2 years older than me and died peacefully from a heart attack, without any prior warning that anything was wrong with her. She had spent the evening at a friend's house watching movies, then went home, to bed, and died. (Sieze the day, people! This could happen to any one of us!)

Her mother had to go to her apartment (she lived alone) and clean it out. Morbid me, I always think about who will be responsible for cleaning out my stuff when I die. And then I worry about what they will find. There are certain people that I do not want going through my things. I know I will be dead and it won't matter to me then, but I still don't want, say, my mother-in-law finding my vibrator. I like to imagine my poor husband, trying to keep people in line, through his grief. But knowing him, cleaning out ANYTHING really doesn't top his list of things to do. Somebody else would have to be brought in. I hope it is my sister who is in charge, with my mother as her assistant. I feel that they would be able to find my diaries and even if they read them, they would hold all that new information inside, not having the contents mar their opinion of me, secrets remaining just that.

To be honest, I don't really care that much who finds my sex toys. I guess it's my diaries that I am most worried about. My innermost thoughts and feelings displayed for the world to read. Some of the stuff is hurtful to others. Most definitely not something I would want "out there". So, should I destroy these histories lest I die and they fall into the wrong hands? Should I explicitly write a note attached to each book with directions of who should be responsible for them after my death? Should I bury them somewhere, perhaps risking having them found by a poor soul who then makes them his/her bible, spawning a new religion based on obsession, jealousy, petty disagreements, reckless behavior, crazy girl ramblings? (OK, that's a little far-fetched, but wasn't Mormonism founded because of some mysterious writings discovered on a hill under a tree somewhere long ago?)

When I was younger, I was re-reading some of my diaries and the same thoughts went through my mind. What if they are discovered? I took a big, black marker and crossed out all the curse words and mentions of hating my mother. I was young and I didn't really hate her, nor did I mean to call that foster kid an asshole. So I deleted what was damaging to my character. As if somebody couldn't fill in the blanks. "Angelo is a real _______" or I "_____ my mother today. She is such a ______." Now, though my feelings are a bit more complex and I use more words to describe what I am going through on a given day, there is plenty that I would like to black out. But then what really is the point? Shouldn't there be one place that is sacred, where my true feelings, no matter how unflattering, nasty, hurtful they are, can be freely expressed? And when I die, the people that can't take the words I've written for what they were when I wrote them, a moment in time filled with one extreme emotion or another, well, they can piss off. Maybe I've just found my diary disclaimer: "To the person who finds these diaries after my death, these are personal records that were never meant for your eyes. Read at your own risk, though I'd rather you didn't read them at all." (A little guilt has never hurt, right?)