How could I feel comfortable publishing something that I had once guarded as so intimately private?

I was helping my mother through some deep cleaning in the kitchen this year when I came across an old, yellowing notebook. Curious, I opened it, and I was surprised to see a rounder, more girly-looking version of my mother’s handwriting.

“Ma, what is this?” I asked. My mother came closer, took a look, and laughed. “Wow, that’s my diary from my first year of teaching after seminary,” she said. “I didn’t even remember that I kept a diary.”

“Can I read it?”

“Why not?” she said.

I could think of a few reasons why not. “Uh, maybe you wrote things about yourself that were private.”

My mother smiled. “I hope I’ve grown enough since then that that’s not me anymore.”

My seminary diary is not exactly yellowing yet. I’m not old at all, no matter what my students think. (You know who you are — thanks for being my best cheerleaders throughout this serial!) But when I started considering publishing excerpts of it, the very thought of it surprised me. How could I feel comfortable publishing something that I had once guarded as so intimately private?

My mother’s answer made it so clear. It’s because it’s not me anymore.