The Hazards of Junk Journaling

A Cautionary Tale from the Depths of My Bed

There comes a time in every man’s life when he must confront his past.

For some, it’s through old love letters. For others, it’s through embarrassing photos from the past.

For me, it was a deep dive into the abyss beneath my bed… a Pandora’s Box (or four) of forgotten junk.

Now, when I say “bed,” I don’t mean just any ordinary mattress-on-a-frame setup. Not at all.

My bed was an architectural marvel… a DIY storage unit disguised as a sleeping space. It was made up of four massive wooden boxes pushed together, a perfect solution for a household constantly running out of storage.

The beauty of this setup? It hid everything. The horror of this setup? It hid everything.

So, one fine day, my wife, daughter, and I embarked on a mission to declutter.

The goal was noble, but we were about to unearth some historical artefacts that should have remained buried.

As we pried open the first box, out came relics of a forgotten era… books, trinkets, and an entire ecosystem of silverfish who had been feasting on literature and self-help books for years. Shakespeare? Devoured. Norman Vincent Peale? Reduced to confetti.

But then, my daughter found something far more scandalous: my old journals from my college days.

Now, let’s get something straight. When most people say “journal,” they mean heartfelt confessions, profound insights, or at the very least, some angsty poetry.

I, however, had unknowingly created the world’s most underwhelming documentary on my life. Each entry read like this:

“Went to college. Came back home. Went to MD (Marine Drive). Watched [Insert Hollywood Movie] starring [Insert Actor and Actress]. Was a good movie. Came back home late.”

And this wasn’t just an occasional pattern. No, this was my entire journal.

Page after page of cinematic attendance records.

My daughter, expecting revelations of my youth, instead discovered that I had spent my prime years doing little more than watching every single English movie that graced the silver screen at the two cinema houses in Kochi that focused on English movies—Sridar Theatre and Little Shenoy’s Theatre.

And, as she so kindly pointed out, I had watched some of them multiple times.

Now, if there was an Olympic event for repeat viewings, I would have been a gold medallist. My pièce de résistance? Enter the Dragon—watched TWELVE TIMES. Yes, twelve. I was practically on Bruce Lee’s payroll.

My friends and I knew every scene, every fight sequence, and every monologue by heart. And yet, we kept going back, as if Bruce Lee himself would appear and personally thank us for our dedication.

My wife looked at me with a mix of amusement and concern, probably wondering if our marriage had been built on an illusion.

My daughter, in her infinite wisdom, asked, “Appa, did you ever do anything else in college?” And I, standing in the wreckage of my own past, had no choice but to concede defeat.

The final insult? The silverfish had nibbled their way through countless classics, yet they had completely ignored my journals. Even they knew boredom when they saw it.

So, dear reader, let my tale be a lesson.

If you’re going to keep a journal, make sure it contains something of substance. Because one day, your child or grandchild might find it, and when they do, you don’t want their biggest takeaway to be that their father or grandfather was a devoted disciple of Hollywood and a part-time philosopher of popcorn-fuelled existence.

Or better yet, don’t keep a journal at all. Some things are best left to the silverfish.

Or in my case, permanently lodged under the bed where they belong… buried under the weight of my own cinematic legacy.