This is what The Open Book Project website has to say about what they are trying to do:
"Read back over the pages of your teenage diary. The thoughts and emotions that once filled your mind probably seem silly in hindsight. Thing is, they're still very real for teenagers today.
The Open Book Project calls on people to offer up past diary entries, and revisit the thoughts, feelings and ambitions they had as a teenager.
What does it aim to do?
The Open Book Project will show today's teenagers that they're not alone. By sharing a page of your teeenage diary, today's teenagers will know that, no matter where life takes you, there are similar things we all experince when growing up.
It's a couragous act that will make a big difference in the lives of Australian teenagers."
I was imediately interested. They are looking for people who kept diaries as teenagers to contribute to an 'open book' that will help today's young people. I kept a diary for all of my high school years and a little beyond. they are all stacked together, in a garbage bag in the farthest corner of the topmost shelf in my wardrobe. A little time capsule of my teenage years that I only very occasionally dust off and delve into.
I've often wondered why I kept them. It has oft been said that people only keep diaries so that they can be read. I'm not sure that this is entirely true. Sometimes I think that they may make interesting reading for my daughter when she gets a bit older - so she can see that mum suffered through all sorts of teenage emotion and angst as well. Sometimes I think I would be mortified if anyone ever read my thoughts from those early years. Sometimes I think they should just be shredded and placed firmly in the past. So in the meantime, they sit on that very top shelf in the corner, in a garbage bag, gathering dust.
Until now that is.
After hearing Jim Stynes talk about this project I think I will get my diaries down off that shelf, dust them off and look for an entry that might convey to young people today that I'm not all that different to them. I might be older now, more confident, hold a steady job, be married to the man I love and have wonderful children, but I once was heartbroken by a boy, in tears over exam results and my apparent lack of future, as well as being joyous at that first kiss with someone special.
I think it's time to finall share a little bit of my past - and I couldn't think of a better way to do it.
What about you?? What can you share??
Click here to learn more about The Open Book Project.
