Are you there bint face? It's me, your sister.

The day I decided that keeping a diary was for suckers was the day I found out my sister had been reading mine.

The worst part being I couldn't even get too angry, given I'd been reading hers too.

Luckily for both of us I was only about 15 at the time and a shy bookish type, meaning the raciest bit of gossip ol' sis managed to extract from those pages was a list of Boys I Would Like to Kiss. Yes that's right - kiss. Oh for simpler times.

Still the experience put me off committing anything for paper lest it be used against me. The irony being that it was only when I had things worth writing about that I declined to do so.

But in the past week or so three things have happened to make me decide I'm getting getting back on the diary train.

1. I found an old shoebox full of letters from school friends and ex boyfriends.
2. I listened to another friend play a ten-year-old recording of himself singing and playing bass down the phone line.
3. I attended the (awesome) wedding of two delightful friends.

It was the letters that started all of this. I've always suspected my memory has been irrevocably addled from booze and general idiocy but the proof was in realising exactly how much I'd forgotten. The box - a collection, of notes passed in class, awkward flirty banter in paper form and break-up letters - was so full of things I'd forgotten it was a bit like reading my sister's diary all over again. I didn't recognise myself. There were schemes I never remembered hatching, crushes I'd wisely erased from the hard drive and names I couldn't match to faces.

I had remembered, obviously, the high cringe-factor of my ex-ex-boyfriend's post break-up "why you're a bitch in 1000 words or more" letter but did I recall the cruelty of the prose, his WILD allegations about my many emotional problems or his killer PS? No, no I did not.

The phone call exacerbated my concerns. Do I have, for instance (as does my aforementioned musically-talented friend) a record of the short-lived radio show young Anna Sinclair and I performed in her bedroom between the approximate ages of 11 and 13? No and no again.

And so of course the wedding cemented the whole thing because it was lovely but I'm a little afraid that, given time, I may forget entirely exactly why it was lovely if I don't have some sort of written memory of the thing. And when an elderley gentleman leans in to tell you that you look like something out of The Great Gatsby (a shameless lie but given I was feeling slightly self conscious about my ridiculously awesome hat one which I appreciated) you don't want to let it slip the old noggin'.

So I'm back on the wagon with a fancy pen, a delightful new notebook and a weekend full of delights to transcribe. Just, um, don't check under my pillow. That means you, Sis.
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UPDATE: Thanks for your charming comments, dear FRIENDS. But, no, contrary to popular opinion I have no plans to a)get married b)breed c)start finding children charming d)own a copy of The Notebook on DVD. The day that I do you shall be the first to know.