After my grandma died, I devoured the letters we found in her house. Beautiful handwritten wartime love letters with tales from her land army days, before and after she met her husband.
There is no stack of love letters between me and my husband for anyone to find and read when I die. There are a few postcards from when I was travelling, and a few letters I’ve written before doing anything adventurous just in case I die, but nothing too embarrassing.
My journals though are a different matter. In them I can be my worst self. I can be pathetic and whinge and whine to my heart’s content. I can be confident and share my wildest dreams without shame. The thought of my children or grandchildren one day reading them is frankly horrifying.
But I can’t bring myself to destroy them. What if I want or need to read them back some day? I do, sometimes, if I want to remind myself of harder times and how far I’ve come.
Do you keep a journal? How would you feel about someone reading it, even after you’re gone? Would you destroy them, or have you already?