Like all movie buffs, I have a laundry list of films that I watch over and over again every time I come across them. Some b/c they’re funny or heartwarming or dramatic and others simply b/c of their powerfully intriguing story and the way it unfolds.
Right now I’m watching “Notes on a Scandal.” Its about a lonely veteran teacher’s discovery that a new young colleague (Cate Blanchett) is having an affair with a student and the way this veteran teacher (Judi Dench) uses her knowledge to manipulate the young colleague into being her best friend.
This story is much more about the manipulative, and desperately lonely veteran, than the teacher/student affair. The one thing that interests me most about the film is that the story is narrated by Judi Dench as she writes daily in her journal.
According to my mother I’ve always like buying notebooks and pencils and I used to consider myself an avid journal writer. I started keeping a journal when I was about 16. One day I was quite bored on a summer afternoon and started typing a story on my computer. I later continued that story in a notebook that sort of morphed into a diary. When I came near the end of the notebook I went back and read several of the entries. When my mother and I moved in with my step dad I threw that notebook away thinking my thoughts were ridiculous and childish.
I journaled all through college. Then I discovered that I had a BF who was nosey enough to read them. He mistakenly brought up something that I had never told him about. Instead of dumping him and keeping my journals, I felt that their secrecy was tainted and threw them out. 4 years of my life in the dumpster.
I didn’t journal much after that. I was busy working at the toy store, hanging out with D, LR and B, and for a brief time LD. Then I was engaged.
I didn’t journal while I was engaged b/c I was afraid that someone would possibly find out what I was really feeling and thinking and that my charade would be found out. Part of me wanted to be found out, to be saved from the black hole that I had created for myself, but I wasn’t brave enough to have any of it in print.
Later I halfheartedly journaled b/c whenever ExH became suspicious he would read my journal. He felt that he was justified. I only wrote when I was angry with him. I hoped and prayed that he would read the things that I wrote about him and would understand how I was killing my trueself in order to remain in that relationship. It was only when I was strong enough to choose to love myself enough to find someone who has enough “balls” to love the “real” me that I was able to detach. I had lived too long trying to fit image that others wanted me to have. Like me for who I truly am or leave me alone.
I’m envious of Judi Dench’s character. There is a scene when we see just how many journals she has. She’s kept every one of them. They are all the same style of notebook, just with varying colored covers. All of those thoughts and memories on record, to be reviewed and perused. It would probably feel like reading something someone else has written, we change so much year after year. So, as soon as I moved out I bought a new journal and started writing again. It will be interesting to see what I think about these moments 10 years from now.
[ExH if you still feel compelled to read my blog then keep your comments to yourself. No one here is interested in what you have to say.]
ayed too, so on Friday we had a full band with LD on drums, his brother on lead guitar, his sister singing and me on the base. LD and I put together most of a Lego Yoda. He had to finish the head by himself b/c we ran out of time, but it was fun to do that with someone. It definitely didn’t take the 6 hours that the first one did.