An excerpt from the blog of Debora Cahn

A word about diaries.  When you find your mother’s diary, don’t read it.  DON’T READ IT.  I tell you this from experience.  I found my mother’s diary.  Not really a diary, a suitcase full of stuff she wrote for a writing class, but one of the assignments was to keep a journal, and my sister said DON’T READ IT and I read it, and I’m telling you.  DO NOT READ THE DIARY.  If they thought you should know, they’d have told you. But more importantly, I say this to the diary keepers of the world:  What the hell are you thinking?  You really think nobody’s gonna find that thing?  You really think that the box in the back of the closet is a secure location?  That an old sweater and a pair of long underwear’ll throw everyone off the trail?  You’re dead, and your poor child/spouse/best friend is tasked with going through your stuff, and they see the box with the sweater and the long underwear, and they think, I’m not going to touch that pair of long underwear, it’s clearly a box of old winter clothing, let’s just close it up again and bring it right over to Goodwill.  No, people.  Anyone who hasn’t had a lobotomy is going to move the long underwear aside, and find the diary, and read it.  And let me tell you, that little tiny lock can be picked with a bobby pin.  If you feel you must put your feelings on paper, destroy those pages once a year.  If you feel you must have a way to reconnect with your younger self, run the bonfire once a decade.  And when you find yourself visiting an oncologist or cardiologist with some regularity, take it as a sign to THROW OUT THE DIARIES.