I still have the first diary I ever received, a small, red, leather-bound book sealed with a gold lock and key, sitting under the tree on Christmas day in 1983, a gift from Santa. I wrote in that one sporadically, and in the dozens I’ve kept in the years since, sometimes faithfully writing every day before skipping months at a time. It’s a precious record, those earnestly-penned thoughts and feelings, ones that, when I sit and re-read them, sometimes make me laugh and sometimes make me cringe. It’s certainly a history of personal growth.
