Careful What You Say. I May Write About It

This week I read book two of John Marsden's Tomorrow series.

Ellie and her friends are in the midst of a war caused by an invasion of Australia.  As all this is going on, Ellie's writing it down. I can't remember what happened in book one, but I think either her friends found the journal, or she shared it with them. Because then in book two, there's talk of her friends being upset about what she wrote. And there are scenes in the second book where people talk to her; then ask if she's going to write down the conversation.

I thought about how it would be awkward talking to someone in that situation—knowing they might record the conversation.

Then I remembered my Australia trip reports.

I didn't write down every little thing that happened during our 2009 Australia trip.  But I did write quite a lot.

It's making me wonder. We visited people in 2013—people who had read my trip reports.  Were they expecting it to happen again?  And if they were, did it make them nervous?  Did they like the idea? Were they worried that I might reveal something too private?  Well, no one said anything like, Dina, can you please not write about this in your blog.

Oh!  You know. There's Tim and Jack as well. Did they think about my future blog posts while we were on the trip?

Well, guess what. Perfect timing. Tim just walked into the room. I asked him if he ever thought during our trip, Is Dina going to write about this?

He said no.   

I guess it's good news. Maybe it means I succeed in not crossing the line when making trip reports. Maybe (hopefully) I know when to keep quiet. Or maybe the people I know are more tolerant than Ellie's friends.

I didn't write day by day detailed reports for the 2013 trip—mainly because I was feeling guarded about my own feelings at that time.  It's hard to do my type of writing when I'm in those moods. I managed to write a few posts about the trips. 

And I made videos.  I'm not sure if I regret that or not.

Well....

I kind of do (regret it).  Writing the trip reports was fun and helped me process everything. It also felt like I was reliving the whole experience.  In a way, it felt like our 2009 trip happened twice.

The videos were frustrating. I think I'm pretty good at editing and adding music. I'm not so good at getting the footage. I watch the videos and understand that most people aren't going to know what's going on. The videos are lacking a decent narrative.

The more I think about it, the more I regret it.  But...such is life.

I guess all is not lost. I still remember a lot. I'm not going to go back and do trip reports fourteen months after the fact.  But when I remember stuff, maybe sometimes I'll turn it into a random blog post.

Here's a memory for now.  I got so tired of food when we were in Australia.  I mean I still had an appetite, but there wasn't much left that sounded good to me. I was especially tired of thinking about food and figuring out what to eat. I was tempted to say, I'll just eat Weet-Bix Bites. That was about the only food I had strong cravings for at that point.  Oh...and well, I was probably still lusting after chocolate.  

Then a day or so before we went to Halls Gap, there was intense heated discussions about what our meals there were going to be. There were going to be only two nights where we were all together and more than two meal ideas that people eagerly wanted. I can't remember what they were now, but we ended up with Mexican and breakfast for dinner. The whole conversation stressed me out, and all I cared about, in terms of our upcoming Halls Gap adventure, was seeing parrots and kangaroos. I was frustrated and in a sensitive mood, which led me to being insulted when Tim and our friend started discussing what they'd feed me on the night that part of our group was together, and they were eating a meat dish. Tim and our friend are both gourmet chefs. It makes sense that they'd want to take care of me with their talent.  But at the time, I took it to mean they thought I couldn't manage to cook a simple meal for myself.

I started to cry right there at dinner. I mean I wasn't bawling or anything. Tears weren't streaming down my face. But I got really quiet and my eyes were probably red. I was at that point where I couldn't answer people when they addressed me, because if I did, I WOULD start bawling.  

How would our world change if we knew for sure there was life after death, and it was easy for our dearly-departed to talk to us via the Internet?   

The Dead are Online, a novel by Dina Roberts