The Vine: September 16, 2009
Dear Sars,
Here’s one that you’ve never answered: what should I do with my journals?
I have a bunch that I’ve written in for the past decade and was storing them in the basement. I decided to go through them today to see if there’s anything worth saving and then shred the rest (or, likely, all of it). But…I don’t know, some of it was interesting to me and surprising so many years later. In the end, I really didn’t want to shred them.
I guess my major concern is that they’re going to be read when I die. Which, hey, I’m dead, who cares? But I worry whoever is reading it will a) think I was nuts (it’s my feelings/experiences plus bad poetry, To Do lists, writing one funny thing a day, venting a lot of vicious anger whose origins were unknown, etc.), or b) be really hurt if I ever wrote something mean about them.
I’m thinking of storing them in the basement again but including some sort of disclaimer on top not to take any of it too seriously in the case of postmortem perusal. What do you think?
Journally
Dear Journally,
I have a bunch of past journals stashed in various places, and I’ve had the same thought about them from time to time — or wished some sort of mechanism existed for vaporizing them instantaneously upon my death.
In the absence of such a sci-fi solution, what you do depends on how much time and energy you want to devote to journal security.You can put them all in a safe-deposit box or a locked fireproof safe of some sort, then leave instructions in your will that, when you die, the executor is not to handle them without witnesses present and said witnesses must ensure that s/he shreds the journals without reading them.You can also scan key pages that you think you might benefit from reading later, and encrypt or password-protect them on a thumb drive that you bury in a public park on the night of the new moon…you see what I’m getting at.Unless the journals contain soap-opera-twist-level information, you only want to spend so much of your time among the living worrying about their perimeter.
I think you have to make a command decision to trust anyone who might read them after your death to understand that it’s just venting — or trust your heirs/assigns/whatever to dispose of them without reading them, for their own sanity.
But your best bet is probably to razor out the pages you’d like to refer back to; keep them in a blandly labeled file folder that’s likely to get tossed without comment if you’re not around to supervise; and shred the rest.
Sars,
I have an etiquette/personal property situation to which I absolutely do not know how to respond. I am hoping you’d have some wisdom to share.
I have a magnificent life with a group of fabulous friends in City A. Prominent in this group is one of my very best friends ever, M, and his live-in girlfriend C. M is one of those people who goes out of his way to be helpful, considerate and generous with other people, and has always been right there for me during times of struggle. C is somewhat less enthusiastically altruistic, but she is also wonderful and kind and giving.
In the last couple of years, I fell in love with an old friend who lived in City B about 2000 miles away, got married and moved there.After awhile, it became apparent that new hubby was a douchenozzle, it was impossible to find employment/financial solvency in City B, and I was miserable and isolated away from my life in City A.
Then douchenozzle hubby made alternate living arrangements that left me with nowhere to go, so I left 99% of my belongings behind, packed up my kid and my cat in my compact car and returned to City A with almost nothing.I managed to get both a job and an apartment, but the job is part-time with a medium-low wage, and I had a waiting period before the lease started where I was couch-surfing with friends.
M and C have another friend, R, who was at the same time in a romantic situation that was far more tragic than mine. Her situation was causing her to move from City A to City C, and she had a lot of household belongings she did not need or want to take.She heard about my situation from them and decided she wanted me to have anything I needed or wanted from this collection.This ended up including a very nice chair, an ornate floor lamp, a desk, some other smaller furniture items and a bunch of kitchen goods.
Because the start of my lease happened a few weeks after her departure, all of these things went temporarily to M and C’s storage space.When we moved them into storage she seemed very excited to be giving these things to me, knowing they’d be helping someone who really needed it.
My lease started a few days ago, and M helped me move all these things from storage.When he got the furniture to load, he brought out the desk and nothing else.I inquired about the chair, the lamp, the other items and he simply said, “Oh, C decided she wants to keep those.” I was so stunned that I didn’t say anything, and only the desk and kitchen stuff was moved to my apartment.
Now, however, I’m annoyed and upset.M and C are a DINK household, and while they aren’t rich, they aren’t living off of a single crappy-paying part-time job and sporadic child support either. They can afford to purchase their own chairs and lamps, while I now have an apartment with no seating and no way to buy any until I land a better job (and yes, I’m applying to things like mad).
I do not know if at some point outside of my presence R gave them a green light to keep anything she was giving away above and beyond anyone else, but I do know that when I was around her, she was quite clear that she believed those items were being given directly to me.
Do I just shut it and be grateful for all the help and things I did get, or should I be asking for/demanding the chair/lamp/other stuff?How do I go about doing so without seeming petty, ungrateful or rude to such good friends who usually are my greatest help?
Sure, go ahead, take that candy from that baby
PS I do not have means of contacting R directly without asking M and C for her information.
Dear Candy,
You’ve got a twofold question here: whether you should have gotten the furniture; and, if you in fact should have, how to get it now.You feel that you can’t ask R directly, which I don’t think is true; you could always let them think that you just want to thank R for her generosity (which you should probably do anyway), but I can see how going straight to R without letting M/C address the disparity first might feel like tattling.
Your best bet, I think, is to ask M and C for R’s contact info, while opening the door for them to clear up the confusion:
“Can I get R’s phone number or email from you?…Well, I’m puzzled about the furniture situation.It’s totally possible that I misunderstood R, but I was actually under the impression that R meant for me to have that chair, as well as some of the other stuff.I haven’t talked to R, so I don’t know if she changed her mind — what was your understanding of the situation?Because I’m not trying to cause a problem, but I have nowhere to sit right now, so before I go out and buy a chair, I’d just like to know what the deal is there.”
Say it as pleasantly as possible, and then do not say anything else.Do not give in to the urge to let them off the hook; do not pass any snarky comments about how their household “doesn’t need” that stuff or “could buy their own,” because while this may be true, the fact that other people’s household income exceeds yours does not entitle you to anything.
The issue is whether R is lending you the furniture, and if she is, why C box-blocked you and took it.So, you want to take a tone of gentle confusion…and then you want to sit without speaking, and not talk yourself out of what you want.Leave the DINK stuff out of it — just state your understanding of the situation and let M and C address it.
If you can keep it pleasant and concise, he may talk themselves into turning over the furniture, but if not, then you have to decide whether to involve R.I wouldn’t, myself, especially if more than a week or two has passed, because it’s a favor, not a signed contract, and pressing the point would only cause hard feelings.
But you might as well call M and C on it now, to the extent that you feel comfortable — and in the future, make a note to plant the flag at the time, when these things happen.And maybe to remember that C is a mite shady.
Hi Sars,
I have a combination family politics/wedding etiquette question.I need to give you some background, apologies for length.
My partner and I have been together four years.When we started dating he was not out to his parents (at 47!) and insisted he would never tell them.As we got serious, he realized he would have to come out if we were ever to have a future.So, he did and all seemed okay at first, in fact, Partner’s dad told him he had known for years.They consented to meet me, and we had a couple of slightly awkward dinners, but overall we got along pretty well and things seemed okay.
Fast forward a few months to dinner at Partner’s parents’ house and I am to meet Partner’s brother for the first time. My partner did not come out to him in advance or prepare him for my presence at all.He comes out to Brother by saying, “[Brother], this is my boyfriend, [my name].” (And he got an earful about this tactlessness later on, believe me).
Anyway, major drama ensues.Brother storms out of the house and no one can get him to come back inside.Eventually we eat without him, and he drives home alone, even leaving his wife behind with no transportation home!My partner and I have not seen or spoken to him in over two years now.Hell, I couldn’t pick him out of a police lineup, I only saw him for that five minutes before he stormed out.
A month or so after this is another family occasion, and Partner hosts at his house.Brother does not come.When Partner’s father arrives, he seems to be in a bad mood and clearly doesn’t want to be there, but claims he is “sick” so we don’t think too much of it.I made an unforgiveable slip of the tongue during dinner and called my partner “hon.”That was apparently just disgusting to dear old Dad.He slams his spoon down, says he just can’t do this, and storms out of the house.That’s the last time I ever saw him.
Since then, both Partner’s father and brother refuse to see or speak to me.When we want to see his family, we have some combination of his mother, sister-in-law, niece (brother’s daughter), and niece’s boyfriend (now her fiancé).All of them are perfectly lovely people.I think his mom is still uncomfortable with having a gay son, but she tries and she seems to genuinely care about me, if not quite think of me as an actual son-in-law.Sister-in-law, niece, and niece’s fiancé are all open-minded and perfectly accepting.
However, we know there are other family gatherings with Father and Brother that we are not invited to.Or, more accurately, it’s made clear that Partner can come on his own, but I am not welcome.Of course Partner refuses to accept such an invitation and this has been going on for years now.
Can you see where this is going?Niece and boyfriend just got engaged.I am certain Father and Brother will threaten to boycott the ceremony if I am included. Niece and niece’s fiancé have long insisted that they want us to be at the wedding, but that was in the hypothetical.As the date comes closer, when she’s a stressed bride with her father and grandfather trying to emotionally blackmail her I’m not sure she’ll be able to stick it out, and I’m not sure its even fair to ask that of her.I would love to go, but bottom line she deserves a great wedding and I don’t want to be the reason it gets ruined.(I know, I’m not really the problem here, but you get what I’m saying.)
Formal invitations haven’t gone out yet, but they will soon.Should I just accept the invitation and say the hell with them, since that’s what she says she wants?Should I bow out in advance, tell her not to invite me? Accept the invitation for now, but give her an out, tell her I will understand if she has to un-invite me later on?Other suggestion?
Homophobes Suck
Dear Agreed,
It’s hard to know where to draw the line between behaving graciously and avoiding situations you know will make you uncomfortable — particularly in cases like this, where the discomfort is caused by the bigotry, and resulting childish behavior, of others.
I doubt I have to tell you that, regardless of what you decide to do, and/or what decisions Niece makes, Father and Brother will not have a cinematic Very Special moment where they finally figure out how to act right, so your focus should stay on what will make you, Partner, and Niece the happiest.
Discuss it with Partner, which I’m sure you’ve already started doing, and tell him, you know, your family isn’t going to Get It, so with that understanding, what’s your ideal scenario here — and what do you think Niece is going to do in terms of bowing to familial pressure to shun you?
Then think about how you want to spend that day.Yes, Niece wants you there, and may very well stick to her guns on that point — as she should, because WTF, people — but if it’s going to escalate the drama, at the wedding or afterwards or both, do you or Partner want to deal with that?Not that it’s your fault, either way; none of it is — but the entire situation clearly causes aggro, and if not attending means that that doesn’t increase for you guys, maybe that’s an option.
But you can’t manage everyone in the situation; you can only manage yourself and Partner, and show good manners.If you want to go, go; if the family wants to raise hell over it, you can jump off that bridge when you get to it, but maybe someone in that den of dipshits is finally going to take a stand on Father and Brother being not just homophobic but rude and self-centered as well.Might as well give Niece a chance (…hee) to force the issue.
But if it doesn’t go your way in whatever fashion, keep in mind that at least you cared enough about trying to keep the peace to write this letter.Some of your in-laws are buttnuts; don’t make that anyone’s fault but theirs.
Tags: etiquette friendships rando the fam
“Some of your in-laws are buttnuts; don’t make that anyone’s fault but theirs.”
Can I have that on a bumper sticker, please?
@Journally I have all my journals and hardcopies of writing from elementary school & on in plastic filing cases in a closet at home (papers filed by year, you know–in my defense, I have it held at 2, I think). Having recently gone through my fathers belongings and kept and skimmed through ~his~ old papers from high school/tech school, I suddenly want to run home and furtively hide said papers or make some plan where they’re safe from prying eyes lest I suddenly pass (unless someone wants to publish them right now so I make oodles of money, of course).
Sorry, not much other advise, expect that if you want to keep them, first: Not in cardboard boxes, especially in the basement. If you hit Staples or Office Max or a craft store (like JoAnns), you’ll find a variety of sizes of plastic bins to store papers and journals. (Crafts stores because they have stuff for scrapbooking, you might find something better suited than a giant plastic bin). If you want to make sure they don’t burn down in a fire or float away in a flood, then Sars’ lockdown advice of in home safes and safety deposit boxes.
Oh, Journally!! – And YOU, TOO, Sars! – I BEG of you, if you can at all stand the thought, write out a disclaimer and stick it in your journals, but for pity’s sake, PLEASE don’t destroy them! I mean, of course you have every right to do so if you wish, but historians LIVE for such documents! Jane Austen’s sister meticulously burned letter after letter that Jane had written to her, on the grounds that they were … burnable, apparently. I struggle between every person’s right to privacy, and the fact that journals such as yours are doorways into other times and other points of view. They are TREASURES. Even things that may seem quite ordinary to you may be the key to understanding some piece of future arcana. I mean, when you were a youngster, Sars, didn’t you occasionally purchase something called a “record”? That produced music? Ever dial a phone? Use a typewriter? Watch something in black-and-white on the TV, and think it was normal?
Take the steps you consider needful … but keep in mind the possibility that your journals might make someone’s career … or simply give someone else better insight into the past, and see that perhaps people weren’t so different then. (Or heck, maybe that they were really different then!)
Candy: good luck to you, and let us know how you make out. I was in the left-the-marriage-with-a-cat-and-frypan position, and I feel for you. Do you have access where you are to either Craigslist or freecyle? They won’t resolve the problem with your friends, but at least it might help furnish your place. And yes, C is a real douchnozzle herself if she decided, on her own, without R’s okay, that she could help herself to the furniture meant for you just because it was there. But at least you know she’s not to be trusted before you trusted her with anything more than furniture.
Agreed: If Niece sends you and your partner invitations, I would say it’s because she wants you there on her big day. I don’t think it would be out of line, after you and your partner discuss the situation, for you to talk to her about the Love to Be There part of it and the possible drama resulting. She may say that if they storm out, they storm out; she may ask you what makes YOU comfortable; it seems to me as if there will have to be a fair bit of conversation back and forth. All I know is that Niece’s future husband has at least four decent in-laws in the offing: Mom, who’s trying, sister-in-law, your partner, and you.
Let us know how you make out; if every in-law made the effort that you are, there’d be a lot of agony columnists out of work.
@Candy I’m not sure that you want to drag R into the middle of this–especially if she’s stuck in the middle of her own drama and she was just trying to do something nice (and I don’t know if she wants to mediate giving away her free stuff, even if its not quite going the way she thought, maybe she does, its hard to say, I don’t know her). However, one legit way to get her contact info: you want to give her a formal thank you now that you’ve received the items and are using them. You want to write her a thank you note. Or call her.
Have M & C been helping out a lot? Was the chair and other stuff pretty cool? Maybe C just coveted the chair and talked herself into it being payment for the storage space usage, couch patrol (don’t know if you surfed at their place) and what-not (compensation for overly helpful M). I’m not saying its right, just where Cs head might be.
You could forget that M said the C wants to keep it and call up and say, hey, got settled in with the desk. I’m ready for the chair and rest of the stuff that R gave me. If they bring up that C wants to keep it again, you’d be prepared with Sars speech. That might be a passive aggressive though. “Forgetting” that C is trying to keep the stuff.
“Even things that may seem quite ordinary to you may be the key to understanding some piece of future arcana.”
I am trying to imagine a future historian reading my com-puh-LETELY overwrought journal entry on the death of Stevie Ray Vaughn (…”Vaughan”? I don’t even know, and yet I was full-on all-caps over it at the time) and gleaning anything of value, except that it would have been a lot easier to read my granny handwriting if I hadn’t been using a PINK-INK BALLPOINT.
They may, however, glean some amusement from the myriad entries that began with a variation on, “Ma, if you’re that hard up for something to read, go to the damn library.”
…Boy, I was a Smurfwad.
I literally *just* unpacked a box of journals and short stories and things, put them in a cabinet, and instructed my boyfriend that he should, upon my demise, burn everything in the cabinet without reading it. He pointed out that I would be dead, so what did I care, and I explained that there was no need to torture the living with the strained prose of my pre-teen self. (I also found a particular story that I could not bear to trash, because it is epically long with, like, zero plot whatsoever, so I scrawled across the top “I wrote this when I was ten!” so the executor of my will would not judge me.)
@Candy – I’d ask for R’s information so as to thank her, and use the gentle confusion Sars advises to clarify that “I want to know exactly what to thank her for!” Pose the request for her contact info as the obvious thing to do, as it would be unthinkable not to write a note of thanks.
@Journally – I’m 41 myself, and have come to the conclusion in the past five years that some forgetting is really okay. In a world where, increadsingly, nothing ever seems really to be “relegated to the past” as we used to say, the older I get the more I think that is almost a pity – that the very value of some memories is their irretrievability. YMMV, of course, but it’s something to consider. And so is this: selective elimination.
I have journals going back to when I was 14; twenty-SEVEN years of journalling gets to be a pretty big pile … and the years when I ever revisited any memory preceding my graduation from college actually ended a long time ago. Five years ago, I embarked on a massive slash-and-burn campaign – denuding not merely journals, but school papers, writing, and non-legal-document materials of all kinds. The recycling came to about four or five Hammermill paper boxes worth, and it felt really good. The journals I didn’t, in fact, do very much damage to, but the reviewing process did afford much organization, so the actual space they occupied was reduced merely with that. Here’s the thing: I did decide to obliterate those archives relating to certain memories *I have dealt with*. Thus far, I’ve never regretted letting those things go. The process of growing past certain things was more important than the artifacts – and getting rid of the evidence serves three practical purposes: alleviating “what if I die”-itis; clearing off SPACE; and psychically freeing you from certain lurking memories. It’s not always a crime to destroy the evidence.
ADDENDUM @Journally:
It may be worth noting that after reviewing the nature of what I had before me in considering my journals and papers, I semi-categorized what there *was*, then set fates for these various items. My father’s pay stubs from his job, dating back to 1964, I placed in order in his briefcase, next to a few papers of my own interestingly (but SPARE-ly) tracing a professional history of my own. Letters to-and-from, and journal entries about/photos of, one certain man in my past – recycled. Cards with no note attached – recycled. Cards from people I can’t identify – recycled. All actual handwritten correspondence (including copies of my own letters; I learned I’d forget if I didn’t keep these), kept, collated into journals. Almost anything predating my college years – recycled. You may find that “rants” go in the discard pile, but the angst – even the overwrought kind – doesn’t.
I quantified what matters now, after all these years, and what could even conceivably be of interest to my nieces etc. after my death, and pretty much ditched the rest. That was only MY system, of course – but any system is arbitrary – and any system will do. If you feel oppressed by the amount you have (and you probably do; or you wouldn’t have written!), figure out your deal-breakers, what’s really valuable to you, and let anything that doesn’t fit that go. It’s not a chronological issue, or a logical one of any kind. But something will come clear, if you take a wide-angle look. Then a closer examination becomes a lot faster and easier.
Heh, I gave up writing journals because I grew so embarrassed at the thought of someone from THE FUTURE! reading my depressive ramblings–some poor undergraduate at some Space University assigned to decipher my crap writing and slogging through the Whining of Endlessness for weeks and weeks until he/she said “screw this, I am dropping History as a major” and ending up at Devrey’s starship repair school. I basically plan to leave orders that if you want to read ’em, knock yourself out, but it’s better for all concerned to reduce, recycle, reuse.
Historians will be much more interested, I think, in HSuck’s niece’s wedding plans. Personally, I say if she wants you there, and you’ve discussed it and decided that you’re up for dealing with possible unpleasantness, go. You and who you choose to love are NOT the cause of any fit-throwing on the part of two grown, living in the 21st century men–they and their inability to be grownups are. If Niece is adult enough to be pledging herself in marriage, she can handle what comes up from HER decision as to who she wants to witness her day.
@journally,
I agree with the folks who say keep on keeping the journals. ESPECIALLY if you have kids, have hopes/plans to have kids, or have other young relatives who might someday inherit your stuff. When my parents had both passed on, my sister had the job of going through all their stuff, and found several diaries of Mom’s. There were our baby books; a pocket calendar with diary-type entries for all the doctor appointments, feedings, etc, for my first year on the planet; and some journal material that predated any of us daughters. Notes on Mom’s pre-marriage dates, and on her feelings when she first met Dad. How she and the rest of the family reacted to the outbreak of WWII. Gripping reading (within the family, at least), giving us a wonderful slice of the 1940’s and early 1950’s, as well as a better understanding of how our mom thought and felt about it all. These are now family treasures, and I am SO glad she didn’t destroy them.
@Homophobes Suck: You have two etiquettely-correct options here. The first is that you accept an invitation or lack of one with grace and equanimity, RSVP in the affirmative to an invitation if it’s proffered, and allow the chips to fall where they may without having said chips interrupt your serene calm.
The second is that you contact Niece privately before the invites go out and say “Listen, hun, we all know there’s a Thing going on here, and the only thing more important to us than being there at your wedding is doing whatever we can to get you the wedding of your dreams. If that means not inviting us, or if it means changing your mind on our presence after the invites have gone out, we want you to know that that is OK by us. We’d be sad to miss it, but heartbroken to ruin it, so we are at your service.” Then DROP IT — you don’t want to make it more about you than Niece thinks it ought to be.
Either way, if Niece wants you there, go. Maybe Father and Brother will learn how to be coldly civil; maybe they won’t. Either way, it’s not on you.
I agree with Sars’ advice to (not) Homophobes, but I’d like to add something. It’s always easy for family weddings to turn into referenda on whateverall anybody in the family has gotten up to. I’m all for Niece sticking up for what’s right, but maybe there’s another to celebrate her marriage if the drama of Custer’s Last Wedding is too much to reasonably bear.
Could you and Partner opt to celebrate her wedding by maybe hosting her and fiance to a dinner of just the four of you (or maybe with his ‘rents along)? That way, you could build new family ties in a pleasant, drama-free setting and leave the crazypants to themselves.
I don’t mean to suggest you shouldn’t go to the wedding, or that your branch of the family tree isn’t as valid and important as any other, but maybe finding another way to fete the family isn’t the same thing as caving in to bigots.
I have bigots in my family too. I wish you luck and happiness.
Oh my goodness, PLEASE, if you decide to store your papers, do NOT put them in plastic bins!!! Speaking as an archivist, plastic bins emit nasty gasses over time that detiorate papers, photos, textiles and other things you may want to keep for a long time. If it means alot to you, or you think it may mean alot to your family after you are gone, purchase some acid-free boxes and store them not in the attic or basement, but the place in your house that is the most even in temperature (i.e. the bedroom that does not get totally hot in the summer and cold in the winter). Environmentally, large and frequent changes in temperature and humidity are the worst for materials you want to keep for posterity. And don’t always believe that stuff in Wal-Mart is really acid-free. Anyone can claim their stuff is acid-free; it’s not like the “organic” label. There are companies that specialize in these archival products that those of us in the industry use every day. There is special types of plastic sleeves you can use for photos, but for saving photos, make sure the stuff has passed the Photo Activity Test (PAT) – it’ll say so on the packaging, and that they can’t fake.
And please remember, journal-writers, that your writings may not be destined to be housed in Harvard’s special collections, but they probably will have alot of personal and emotional value to your family in years and decades to come. You may have dealt with the problems and emotions that you write about, but your neice or grandchild may find inspiration and connection if they have a similar problem, or just come to a greater understanding of who you are, who we all are as human beings, and all that “community of man” stuff. There’s something valuable in seeing how your present is reflected in the pasts of others, that we are not totally alone, how those old photos we see have real people in them who may not be as totally remote or alien as their clothes may suppose; they were just as silly, as stupid, as generous and as wonderful as we are now.
Oh my goodness, I’m rambling. But this is what I do for a living. Zut alors.
Just to offer another take on the journal situation – I know someone who had the unfortunate experience of uncovering his father’s journals in the aftermath of his father’s death…only to find that his father had written at *length* about his negative/ambivalent feelings towards his son. It was the insult of all insults that topped an already aching injury. If there are things in your journals that will be hurtful to your loved ones, ditch them.
As a historian (professional historian? history professor? works at a history factory?) I promise you Sars, that your pink-in ballpoint and early twenty-something girl angst over Stevie Ray Vaughn will give us plenty to think about in the future!
La Belladonna is right, especially as society has shifted into the ephemeral space of social networking and electronic media, written journals are a social/cultural history goldmine.
I’ve been slowly transcribing my journals into password-protected Word documents, scanning drawings, and throwing them away. I don’t want to lose access to those memories (yet), but also I don’t want to have to look at physical reminders of my teen angst every time I move or do spring cleaning. My craziest journaling is all digital anyway.
If the hard drive I keep this stuff on someday fails, I’m not too worried about it. If I meant this stuff to be for others, it would be online already. I’m already beyond what’s in there, so if/when it disappears, it’s already been let go.
OK, “buttnuts” and “douchnozzle”… this was by FAR my favorite column of all time!
@Candy. First, kudos on getting out of a bad situation. I also left a bad marriage with just my cat and what would fit in my truck. It’s tough. I heartily recommend Freecycling your way to domestic bliss, if at all possible. Clearing the air about the chair, etc., with M&C is a good idea, though I suspect that C is hanging on to the stuff as payment for the storage unit being used to hold the stuff. (Or maybe she is just clueless about the etiquette of such situations, and didn’t even realize it was a bit tacky to decide to hang onto the chair.) I’d ask them about it, and then accept whatever they say and move on. I know it’s frustrating to be in a bare place with tight cashflow, but since these people are also your family and support network, it would suck a lot *more* to be in a bare apartment, broke, and at odds with your friends.
I have had great luck with Freecycle in my area — the stuff I got might not make my place look like Dwell magazine, but it’s serviceable, and having a homey place to come back to at the end of the day is an immense comfort when you’re trying to rebuild your life.
I’m with @Bria (kind of). A memoir is different than a journal — maybe if you want to leave an informative record of your life, you could go ahead and write one! But I’m in the “toss them” camp when I comes to the journals. They are too self-involved and myopic (as they are by nature) to be of anything other than prurient interest to anyone else.
I, myself, have unpopular, narrow and jaundiced views on journaling, but aside from that, destroying them prevents the emotional vouyerism in which your postmortem readers would engage. Appeal to their better natures with a memoir everyone can feel comfortable with, both by leaving it behind and by reading & sharing it.
@Heather C. – glad I’m not the only archivist skulking around here!
I second the “Please do protect your journals” side, if only for you- you never know how much you really value these things until you don’t have them anymore, and journals and photo albums are the kinds of things that are so easily lost in fires, floods, any random household incident; and when they’re gone, people mourn them more than any other possessions. They’re a piece of who you are, and who knows down the line what they will mean to you or to– yes, it’s possible– someone else. People who follow you may be so happy to have just a little piece of who you were at some point, and they can overlook the silliness, we’ve all been through our own phases. I hate to think of you destroying them just to wonder why you did it 25 years from now.
If you’re insistent? Get the equivalent of a “porn buddy” (the friend guys have that swears , in the event of their death, to remove porn from the other guy’s house before his parents arrive) – a friend or relative you trust to whisk that stuff away or indeed destroy it before they fall into strange hands.
I have to say, the suggestion that your loved ones would respectfully not read your journals after death seems to have been proven wrong in several of the responses. I get that this person is dead and the journals have been a comfort- but they were someones private thoughts. I would get rid of anything you wouldn’t want to be seen or read.
@ all the other journal-hoarders… Mine are in a box marked, “Boring Stuff.” I was going to put something like, “Government HR Policy Changes.” However, since I’m a recovered hoarder and my Dude is a chronic Purger of Useless Items, I would hate to have to reveal the sordid truth about the contents of that box. Because there would be questions… Boring Stuff has worked so far.
But really, I should just hijack the shredder and be done with the whole works.
Homophobes Suck: What a crappy situation you are in. I agree with most of the advice given. The key, I think, is to remember what you can control and what you can not control.
I wouldn’t ask the bride-to-be directly – being a normal person, she probably wouldn’t want to admit that it is something she’s worried about. I would accept the invitation and include a note saying how happy you are for her, and letting her know that, should it seem like your presence might cause her dad and grandfather to act like asswipes on her wedding day, you will graciously bow out. Maybe Partner can talk to his mom about whether or not Dad and Brother can act like adults for one day?
Maybe they will be smart enough to realize that particular day is about the couple getting married, not them, and be able to behave appropriately.
If they can’t behave themselves, I think throwing some sort of little party with Neice and her husband and whatever family is normal would be a lovely way to share in the celebration without giving in to Dad and Brother’s Stupid Drama.
For those journals, there’s always finding a Cringe get together in your neighborhood.
http://queserasera.org/cringe.html
Granted, this is easier to do in NYC . . .
@ Bria – sorry to hear that your friend got so hurt. I do think, though, that people who read other people’s journals should be prepared to uncover some things they wish they’d not read. Journals are the one place we shed all politeness and concern for what others might think – and they should be. The fact that something is quite obviously a journal should be a red flag. They’re not happy places, generally speaking, so read at your peril.
I’m thinking of labelling my massive box of them “Please burn upon my death.” and add a small “but if you’re really curious, read at your own risk.”
The main thing that worries me about leaving my journals for other people to read after I take a train to the eternal hunting grounds is that it might change their memories of me. It could do so for the better, but also for the worse. I suppose I could keep it in mind while writing, but part of the joy of journalling is that I’m not writing for an audience, and it can be as repetitive, unfair or rude as I need it to be at any given time.
It is a bit of a dilemma.
Hi… I’m Candy. As an update, this situation sort-of resolved itself when I had M and C over for dinner after I got unpacked. All I had to offer for seating anywhere in my apt were two dining chairs, while I sat on a milk crate. After a little while, C (who wasn’t home at the time we moved these things from their place to mine) piped up and said “You know we still have that chair that R gave you at our place. Didn’t you want that? I can bring that with me next time.” She said it in such a way that it sounded like she never intended to keep it, but maybe it was faux-confusion as a means of backtracking, or maybe it was M (who is a little bit of a packrat) who wanted to keep the chair and used C as an excuse the first time around. Either way, I’m getting the chair after all, and the remaining items they kept I don’t really care enough about to push the issue.
I should note, I *did* give R a thank-you letter before she left.
To answer other questions though, I did occassionally stay with M & C while couch-surfing, usually on nights when we attended other social events together, though I never spent more than two nights a week with any one person. (It’s a very novel experience to spend six weeks waking up someplace different every morning.) The chair in question is of good quality/condition but is not unusually cool in design. However, the lamp and most of the other items though are really awesome – R has spectacular taste. It’s possible that simple lust for the stuff and a sense of my being indebted to them led them to keep those items as a sort of generosity tax.
I also really don’t want to drag R into this. She’s many states away, and her situation is one of those where you can’t believe that life could be so repeatedly and completely evil to someone who is so kind and sweet. More drama is not what I want to put on her plate.
Lastly, for Journal, having also worked as an archivist: Journals may seem silly or trivial or plain cringe-worthy to us as we read them years later (my high school journals full of terrible poetry were in teal, berry-scented ink!) but they are great stuff for historians. They give an inside peek to the common mannerisms, culture, behavior, and norms of the time. The more they are about mundane, every day life the more valueable they get from a larger, historical-sociological perspective. Please don’t toss them! If you can bear it, even have them arranged to be donated to a local library or historical society archive or museum upon your death. And definitely yes, even if you don’t have extra room in a constant-temperature bedroom, get them in an acid-free box or at least wrapped up in acid-free paper or bags.
Journally, you need a “porn buddy” – On BBC’s “Coupling” the guys each have a trusted reliable “porn buddy” who, upon the guy’s demise, will rush to the deceased’s apartment and commandeer all the porn before anyone else sees it. You need one for your journals.
Candy, I would ask for R’s contact info, and pointedly thank her for the desk, Oh the desk is so lovely the desk is so nice love the desk desk deskdeskdesk…R will likely wonder WTF, doesn’t she like the lamp or chair? If she asks, then it all comes out in the open. I am extra passive-aggressive sometimes. (I guess extraEXTRA passive-aggressive would be to break the damned lamp next time you visit…I could be worse) I think C & M are turdly for keeping these things – unless there’s some secret agreement between R and C&M that we haven’t heard. I second the craigslist suggestion.
Agreed – you should let ME date your partner for a bit – I could make his family so happy to have you! I’d wear a bathrobe & curlers in my hair & interrupt constantly & scratch & pick my nose & burp & fart & eat off thier plates & never flush. I’m so sorry part of his family are so mean, you deserve better. As attica says, I have bigots in my family too. I wish you luck and happiness.
Homophobes Suck:
It’s Niece’s move to make, really. My granny was a racist. She raised me and my two sisters when our mother was fighting cancer, and I loved her but it wasn’t easy because: she was a racist. Nothing ever happened until later in life, that’s when she stopped hiding it. Because my bro-in-law is black. And on the left hand that is freaking appalling and on the right hand She Raised Us. Tolerating it and not tolerating it both felt like betrayals.
But. She was a grown woman. She made that choice. So sis made her’s and gran did not come to the wedding.
Father and Brother are gross and self-centered. And since it’s Niece’s wedding it’s her job to decide what kind of guests she wants there. If you want to go and she invites you, go.
About journals: it depends on the type of journal. I kept some but they read more like To Do lists – women not tasks – so there’s no real value in ’em. Did you do interesting things or live in an interesting place? Are you witty? Keep them for you, or dump them if you aren’t interested in them anymore.
I took too long to type – Candy appeared! I’m so glad that worked out!
And Kelly mentioned porn buddies. I am so slow.
I didn’t keep a diary for the longest time, for fear of others finding it. When I got to college, friends were on Livejournal–I started using it to keep in touch with them, but then started writing “private” entries that were locked from view (for the times I wanted to be good and overwrought). That might be a good solution for people who want some sort of password protection/hiding on their journalings, and don’t want to keep large boxes in safe places. (Also, my penmanship is practically nonexistent.)
My apologies to future historians, of course.
Archive-y people: Having cleared a basement that had been water damaged and damp at various times resulting in musty papers (in cardboard boxes) now sitting in bags with baking soda (hopefully this isn’t a horrible idea)…would putting papers and journals in a archival boxes and then in a plastic bin be good or bad? Or pointless? Or is it archival box in a good safe room or else you’re just taking your chances? I guess I’m not horribly concerned about everything I own paper/photo-wise, but some things I’d like to know about for the longer term. I mean, I don’t plan to have a water incident in my basement or elsewhere, but things happen.
@Candy, yay for the chair. Weird about the other stuff. Maybe they stared at it and talked themselves into “Candy couldn’t possibly want this lamp, right? She’ll have no where to put it. The kid or cat will probably knock it over. Did R say we could pick something too? Didn’t she? I’m sure she meant that we could even if she didn’t say it….” Or maybe they called her and asked if they could have they lamp, she said, “Uh, I guess if Candy doesn’t want it.”
Or, they stole your free stuff. Maybe invite them over again and sit in the dark? Just kidding. Sort of.
Just a note from someone who was in a similar position to Niece when I got married. It would have been such a relief to have someone say (or write) to me something along the lines of what Kathryn above mentioned. I agonized for hours and hours about whether to invite both parties to my wedding, and knowing that at least someone understood that I was in a tough spot and making the best of a bad situation would have improved my emotional state a thousand times.
In my case, it was complicated because neither person involved was the “bad guy” in any way, and neither would have caused a scene. But the fact remained that due to circumstances none of us have ever had any control over, the presence of one would have devastated the other.
I wound up taking the one relative aside and initiating a talk about how it wasn’t fair, it wasn’t her fault, and it certainly wasn’t polite on my part, but I was going to leave her out of the party. I felt absolutely terrible about it, then and now, and even though my relative took the news most graciously and I still can’t think of a better alternative within my control, I regret it to this day.
So, to make a long story a little shorter, it would be very kind to at least acknowledge to Niece that you know she is in a tough spot and you don’t want to make it tougher on her. It won’t make it any easier, really, except maybe in her head, and that can go a long way when planning a wedding!
It wasn’t a journal, but when I went through my father’s papers after his death I discovered some lawyer’s letters regarding his divorce from my mother (when I was 13) that mentioned his cocaine addiction.
Yeah, I really didn’t need to know that my dad was a cokehead during my childhood.
I love rereading my journals every so often, but they take up too much space. I have epic plans to scan them all, back up the digital files, and toss most of the hard copies. Except for the oldest journals with 101 Dalmatians and Star Wars characters on them. Those are too awesome to throw away.
@Homophobes Suck, you didn’t get into the details of the wedding, but one option you might discuss with Neice is that you and Partner attend the ceremony but not the reception. ( I’m sure that there’s some “wedding rule” that this is “not done,” but whatever. There have been several weddings of family friends where I felt like I should put in an appearance at the church, but was in a crunch at work at didn’t go to the reception. Some other friends got married and had a smaller dinner reception for family, and then a dessert/dancing thing with everyone who was at the wedding. So, in my experience these things are fluid.)
Whatever their issues, Brother and Dad are probably not going to pitch a fit during the ceremony at the church/courthouse/ meadow. But when everyone is standing around (potentially drinking) at the reception, that’s when it might get crazy. So, you could still be there for the actual wedding (which is, techinically, the important part), and then bow out before they have a chance to say or do anything hurtful.
It’s easy to say that someone who reads someone else’s journals should know what they’re getting themselves into, but when people are grieving the loss of someone, especially if it’s been sudden, they tend to want to wrap themselves up in all the remnants that person left behind, regardless of how unproductive that might be. They may not be in a rational position to make that decision. My mom died suddenly, my dad was in no state to start monitoring my reading, and I found myself learning way too much at the wrong age (as if any age wouldn’t have been) about my mother’s struggles with depression, addiction, and motherhood woes. For instance, as an adult, I can totally grasp the sadness that a mother feels when she believes that her kids are too independent to need her any longer, but as a kid, that made me feel awful and guilty and left me with no way to resolve it.
Even those who want things destroyed can appreciate the times this wish has been violated. For every historical figure who left a successful request to have their papers destroyed, there’s someone else who had loved ones unable to follow through. Emily Dickinson wanted all her papers and poems burned. After knowing what we know, we can be horrified that she would have requested such a thing, but we wouldn’t know what we know if someone hadn’t ignored her wishes.
Adults can normally cope and work through, but if there have been turbulent family times documented and/or there are children involved, it seems like it’s hard to take too many precautions.
Actually, going to the ceremony and not the party is perfectly fine.(It’s the reverse that’s incredibly rude.) And in this case, may be a decent compromise if Niece doesn’t think the Buttnuts will be civil.
Homophobes suck, I hear you. Family situations can make things like this really tricky. My husband’s father married ‘the other woman’ and that’s made weddings and graduations really uncomfortable for everyone.
My husband graduated from law school a few years ago and my step-mother-in-law graciously made an excuse to not come. I didn’t know her very well at the time but appreciated her helpful way of avoiding a potentially awful dinner party. Now that I do know her better, I really appreciate that she made that sacrifice. I’m not sure that this is helpful to your situation, but I want to let you know that sometimes saying that you wish you could come and you look forward to celebrating later is a generous act too. And I get that this is not the same as your boyfriend’s husband and brother situation, but I thought I would let you know that bowing out can lead to something good as well.
@Vickie Lee: chronic Purger of Useless Items – at last! A name for the opposite of an extreme hoarder. Thank you.
I have a few journals somewhere in the house and still scribble occasionally, although not in the teen-angsty way I did years ago. I think I’d be happy for people to find them, although preferably not family! There’s definitely an argument for keeping hard copies as all that stuff stored on floppy disc and even tape will become more and more difficult to access.
@Homophobes suck: When I read your letter yesterday, I was generally agreeing with the bulk of the advice you’ve been given. But having slept on it last night, my feelings have changed somewhat.
I think that if you have been invited to the wedding, then you should go. No apologies or excuses or hedging. This is your sister-in-law’s wedding, for goodness sake — of course you should go!
Similarly, *of course* her father needs to go. And the only person preventing that from happening is himself. If he is so small minded that he chooses to not go to his own daughter’s wedding, then he doesn’t deserve the honour of being there. His bigotry is not your problem to fix or ameliorate — that’s called “enabling”. He needs to live with the consequences of his own foolishness.
Your sister-in-law deserves to be surrounded by people who love and support her at her wedding. Give her that, and give the father the opportunity to act like a man, be there, and behave himself. Maybe he’ll rise to the occasion.
@Shannon – yep. My nieces need never know I have committed adultery and had an abortion. Just because that is a part of what made me who I am (and still may become), that doesn’t mean it is a part of what I am. Nor, for that matter, is it relevant, right, or necessary for everyone who loves me to even know what comprises me entirely. We never fully know one another, and not everything illuminating is necessarily worthwhile.
Privacy is a valid option.
@KPP: For your damp stuff, first thing is to dry everything out. Each paper should be laid out to dry; if you can’t do it all at once, put whatever is still wet in the freezer till you have room. Run some fans. For bound materials, put paper towel pieces in between the wet pages and keep them open, turning pages occaisonally to let it all dry out. If you see mold on the materials, once they are dry you can scrape off the mold. It’s painstaking, I’ll admit. We had a small mold bloom in our house, affecting a small amount of materials (yes, I store stuff in acid-free boxes in my house!). I scraped mold from the papers that could not be replaced, but there was some stuff that would be fine if I just photocopied onto acid-free paper (Perma-Life is the most common company that makes this stuff). I won’t pull out the jargon, but the difference here was what important about the paper – was it the information on it, or the paper itself? If it’s just the info, dry it out and photocopy it.
Some companies have special acid-free boxes with a waterproof coating on the outside, but they are more expensive. If you keep the stuff out of the attic or basement, putting them in regular acid-free boxes from a reputable manufacturer should be fine; don’t worry about the plastic bins.
And remember everyone – if important papers get wet, bag ’em and freeze ’em ASAP! Then you can start the drying out process.
Thank you, Stealth Historians, for speaking up! And thank you, Heather, for specifying archival storage – I meant to put that in my post, and then I meant to get back to write it. People, yes, even the most mundane to-do lists are of interest to people who will be alive a hundred years from now! Memoirs are all fine and dandy, but they honestly aren’t as valuable to human understanding as the unexpurgated rambling bits that get jotted down. Yes, they can lead to pain; truth, unfortunately, frequently does. That’s really sucky. The first time you hit a bump in a loved one’s journal, it’s OK to put it back for the next generation to finish reading. But it makes it easier to understand why your child is struggling with addictive behaviour if you find out that mom or dad did, too, or that you and your mom both had post-partum depression, and your daughter is now pregnant. Your jumbled thoughts (written in purple ink, here!) may help another person struggling through adolescence. Even someone’s innermost racism, never let out into the light of day, may make it easier for someone two hundred or five hundred years from now understand why it was such a big deal in previous centuries – or help them come to terms with a child’s marrying someone from a GENUINELY different race.
It may also help a child connect with a parent she never got to know, or a grandparent he never met. It may help them see their parents as PEOPLE, rather than adjuncts to themselves. Sars, there’s EVERY chance you may get revenge for any boring English classes you had to take – I wouldn’t be in the least surprised if you and/or your work wind up as school assignments.
People who don’t keep journals themselves have NO IDEA as to their value as windows to other worlds. They help human beings connect to each other across time. Your words are treasures – yes, even your embarrassing adolescent angst. What speaks more clearly to someone going through the same thing? Not adults, that’s for sure. But if you survived your adolescence to become a functioning human, that can be a beacon of light to someone wondering if he or she will, too. And, sadly, if you don’t – that can be a guiding light, too. Even people’s flaws are part of their humanity.
I’m not saying save everything, especially if you’re a Paper Hoarder. But a stack of journals, with photos and letters? Don’t discard them because you think they have no value. You may not see yourself as Anne Frank – but she wasn’t writing for the ages, either; not intentionally.
Re journals, my elderly uncle died suddenly earlier this year and I brought home his Filofax, meaning to re-use the binder, as well as a bunch of refills and sundry papers. And yeah, what Hollie said was true – I hadn’t spoken to him in a while and I was hurting, and wanted to wrap myself up in what was left: so, I read them.
What I got was entry after gut-wrenching entry about the poverty (partly self-induced, he drank a fair bit) that he faced almost every other weekend, when his adequate-but-not-generous state pension ran out.
The entries where he had no milk, no cigarettes, no joy… this was during a period when I was doing fine financially, and sticking him a tenner in the post of a Thursday wouldn’t have killed me.
The poor guy’s dead now, and it’s too late for a sorry, and to be fair at the time I had no idea, and he’d watched my mum (single parent) raise me through some tough times and not lifted a finger… still.
I wish I’d never read them, is all there is to it – I inherited a shedload of guilt and regret that I know he would never have wanted me to have.
I would need an actual porn buddy FOR my journals – I’ve occasionally gotten a little too into exactly what went on with boyfriends. The handwritten ones are pretty coy, but the current computer journals have these expanses where I turned the font white so *I* don’t have to see the XXX stuff every time I scan a particular year to see exactly what day I adopted my cats, or when somebody got married, or what year we went to that place because I’m trying to label old photos of it, or, especially, exactly when and how I had the epiphany that the guy with whom the XXX stuff happened was an idiot.
(Why do this? Why not just delete that stuff? Part of it is an obsession with milestones, and part of it is being old and single and trying desperately to remember how I was desirable once – having it written down makes it real.)
@Homophobes Suck — my husband and I just got married, and had a few awkward guest list issues of our own (which I won’t get into here, suffice it to say it involved divorced parents). Based on our experience, I would guess the following:
1. By the time an invitation gets to you, a month or two before the wedding, Niece will almost certainly have discussed the guest list with her parents. Any hint of trouble will come before the invitations go out — if there will be trouble, expect Niece to talk to you and Partner before the formal invitations are issued. So if you haven’t heard anything from Niece, and you receive an invitation addressed to both of you guys, that probably means she’s already told her dad and granddad that she’s inviting you, and decided she can deal with whatever consequences there are to doing that.
2. Just because you accept doesn’t necessarily mean Dad and Granddad will bail — in fact, even given their intense homophobia, I’d be surprised if they did. Family dinners are one thing, but a daughter’s/granddaughter’s wedding is (hopefully!) once-in-a-lifetime, and there will also be a lot more people there than at your average family dinner. Sars is right in saying that they’re probably not going to experience a cinematic Very Special Moment when they realize how stupid they’ve been — it’s probably going to be more like “we can ignore them for one day, since Niece wants them there, and then go back to excluding HS and Partner from other family events.”
Ultimately, Sars is right on the nose when she says to think about how you want to spend the day. If you’d rather not spend it being ignored by your in-laws, that’s completely understandable. If you and Partner adore Niece and wouldn’t want to miss their celebration for the world, and you feel like you can deal with being given the cold shoulder, that’s awesome. But by the time the invitation hits your mailbox, Niece has made her choices, so if that invitation comes I think you should take her at her word and assume it will be fine if you attend.
Awesome advice already given to Homophobes Suck. Just wanted to add on the idea that if Partner or HS opts not to go, another way they could have some enjoyment of the moment with the niece would be to have her and her husband over when they get back from the honeymoon and have all the photos from the wedding and the reception. I found that all my recently married friends loved going through all the pictures and showing them off. Could be another way to connect without worrying about drama, though I agree that it seems unlikely the jackholes would have time to be jerks at the ceremony.
@autiger23: Great suggestion! And so true about the recently married. We try not to inflict our photos on anyone unless they ask, but boy do we love it when they ask :-) (It’s not every day you can show off a photo of a Presbyterian minister doing the Electric Slide.)
After thinking about it for a while, I realized that Niece may not want to approach Partner and HS herself if there’s trouble re: HS attending. Let’s face it, it’s a bit embarrassing to admit your dad is being a ridiculous bigot, even if the person you’re talking to already knows it. But if there is trouble, I do think you’ll hear about it from somewhere, probably from Partner’s mom or SIL, before the invitations go out. And actually, talking to Mom or SIL to get the real scoop on any family drama may be the way to go, if you want to know the situation but don’t want Niece to feel like she’s in the middle. If SIL says “Niece wants you there, and her dad is not thrilled but coping and has promised to behave himself,” great. If they actually have resorted to threatening a boycott, that sucks, but at least you’ll know, and you can go from there.
But again, I have a really hard time imagining the bride’s dad and grandfather not attending the wedding because a male family member is bringing another man. That’s not to minimize the suckiness of their homophobia, I guess I’m just holding out hope that they love Niece enough to not put her in a position like that.