Happy birthday

‘Count your blessings’ REM – Bad Day

This week marks the fifth birthday of Open Diary. Tell us about your Open Diary experience: how you started, what’s been good, what hasn’t, what you think your future with OD might hold…

I think most people on this site have an interesting story to tell. Here’s mine.

I’ve been on OD three years now, starting back in the days when it was a free site with something like 10,000 diaries. There I was, a month into the first challenging job I’d had after graduating. I was determined to do well, to make my mark, to progress my career. I lived in London and was 6 months out of a 4 year relationship. Everyone thought I was having a ball being single again. I went out with work each Friday night (the boss used to pay for the drinks all night, it would have been rude to refuse!) and saw old friends at least two or three times a month for more drinking. Drunken nights, drunken kisses, the occasional one night stand. The outward appearance of a twenty-something single girl having fun in the city.

I’ve had a diary since the age of 11. I still have them somewhere, taking up space in a box under the stairs. Part of me thinks I should get rid of them. My life is different now and they are after all, merely full of the musings of a confused girl entering her teenage years. But they are part of me. They’re probably no different to the teenage diaries of many of you. So they stay in the box. But I loved being able to write in them. Loved expressing the innermost thoughts of my head privately. I would have been mortified if anyone had read them (although I have a sneaking suspicion my mum did on more than one occasion). They were mine and probably my teenage salvation.

So, there I was, doing my job properly and wondering if I was going to be found at some moment for being a fraud. Feeling like a girl playing “let’s pretend we’re grown up and have a job.” I came across od as part of my job, after sticking the words “financial” and “diary” into a search engine. All I wanted was a site giving me the key dates in the financial year (end of each quarter, bank of england meetings, company results, etc) and what I got was this place. A morning was then spent not working and reading about the lives of other people. I was fascinated. I couldn’t believe people were prepared to write about their innermost thoughts and post them on the internet. I hadn’t kept a diary for five years. Now I wanted to start again.

I found I had plenty to write about during my time in London. I found I was able to express how sick of the whole city I really was. Feelings that startled me a little I have to say. I made friends and found people who have gone on to become some of my greatest friends. I met Tony (Neo2810), a South African living in Newcastle and he was the first person I met from here. I went up to Newcastle and as the train crossed the Tyne and I saw the Tyne Bridge, I knew that what I’d been looking for had been found. How corny is that?  Tony helped me get out of London, providing a mattress to sleep on when I had job interviews and viewing flats and dealing with agents for me whilst I was in London. 6 months after starting here, I was in Newcastle.

That of course is where I met Duncan. A man who could be considered insane by proposing to me and who will win a medal if he manages to put up with my family and the wedding planning for the next 18 months. A man to whom I can turn, hence the dropping off of entries here.

I’ve met some fantastic people through this site. I’ve met at least 10 diarists, some former, some still active. I’ve chatted to more via email and icq. I introduced one of my best friends to a diarist from here and they have now been together two years and are living happily in South London. There has, touch wood, been no bad experience for me from writing here and like others I intend to be here until the orchestra plays the last dance and either this site or myself goes under.

Until there is a next time…

xx