Dear Diary: I don't remember being so boring

Motherhood might be more of an art than a science, but there is one absolute when you're raising a pair of middle school-aged daughters: Never, ever read their diaries.

But if they should find the tattered journal you kept over the course of eight months in fifth grade? That's a different story.

A few days ago, while searching through an old trunk for photos to put in a 25th anniversary memory book for my husband and me, my 12-year-old twins stumbled upon the One Year Diary I got for my 10th birthday from my little sister, Posie. Within seconds, they had me on the phone at work.

"You won't believe what we found," they said, giggling. "Your diary."

I didn't care that they had read it. In fact I thought it might be fun for them to see what kind of things I found important enough to write about as a little girl. Within seconds they were in stitches over the very first entry, which detailed my other birthday gifts, including hair clasps and a choker from two of my older brothers and a suitcase from "Mommy and Dad."

"A suitcase!" one of them hooted in disbelief. "You got a suitcase for your birthday? Didn't your parents like you?"

I gently reminded them that iPods and cell phones, which most of their little friends seem to own in spades, hadn't yet been invented. The hilarity - mixed with equal parts incredulity - only grew when my daughters decided to read all 233 pages of the diary to me out loud while we ran errands in the car after dinner. Particularly amusing to their sophisticated ears was how I started each entry: "Dear Diary" and ended it: "Love, Gretchen."

"Was it like, your friend?" they kidded me.

Seeing I only wrote in it for a scant 8 months, I wasn't exactly the most dedicated journaler; my last note came on Sept. 16, when I went to my first baseball game at Three Rivers. (The Pirates defeated the Cardinals 6-1, making for a "fine time.") Nor was I particularly revealing or introspective; all I seemed to write about was playing with my friends at the "turnaround," going to swim practice or piano lessons, having sleepovers or walking up the hill to the bookmobile. ("BM" in diary speak.)

As my 14-year-old son, who was held captive in the backseat, moaned after about 50 pages, "Mom, you were soooo boring!"

Not to mention shortwinded.

"Dear Diary," I wrote on February 10. "Tonight I watched Medical Center and learned how to draw a horse. Today was busy." Love, Gretchen."

Or how about this gem from March 31: "Dear Diary. Today I had gym in school. I also had art. Love, Gretchen."

.

It was fun for me to read about long-forgotten childhood friends and life events. For instance, I'd forgotten that was the year my older sister had surgery for scoliosis, or that I was a lousy enough singer to get cut (!) from the elementary school talent show, or that I got to keep the clay nose I wore as a witch in a school performance of "Robin Hood."

The sweetest memory, though, came from April 3, or what I referred to some 30 years ago in bright red ink as "my best day in my life."

Dear Diary," I wrote. "Today I went to Nancy's birthday party. I won a set of jacks. I also went to the fair at school. Jeff gave me a paper flower. He also said ‘I love you.' Love, Gretchen."

For years, I'd been telling my girls about the neighborhood boy I'd had an unrequited crush on my entire childhood. (Except for June 7, when I confided to Dear Diary that he was "dumb.") Here was proof that he returned my affections, if only for one day in fifth grade.

Jeff came out of the closet not long after high school, so he never would have liked me in the way elementary-school girls want to be liked by that one special boy.

But later, it made me wonder: What's in the books my girls scribble away in each night? What do they do at school besides gym and art class? What boys are they crazy in love with? What life events are so significant to their 12-year-old minds that they have to write it down for posterity?

Guess I'll have to wait until they have treasure-seeking daughters of their own someday to find out.

- Gretchen McKay

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