40. Even bad diaries are good in later life — Tracy Farr

Teenage diaries tend to be brave, passionate, exploratory, funny and heartbreaking. Senior diaries enrich your life with the clarity, compassion, and wisdom you have gathered over the decades. Writing a diary in old age is a chance to stretch your mind, express yourself, record events, have fun, and make sense of your life.

Writer-podcaster Tracy Farr co-founded the Bad Diaries Salon and is the author of three novels, including the brilliant Wonderland in 2025. She knows a lot about diaries and aging.

You kept your teenage diary secret for good reason: but a diary at any age brings many rewards. It's a trusted confidant, a creative outlet and a close friend. You wrote it as a strictly one-way communication, but when you're older, you can look back and see that your life has had a shape, a direction. That you have learned a great deal over the decades. And that your young self was not exceptionally foolish, but just, well, young!

You'll hear about Tracy's own long-lived grandparents who were her role models for old age. She talks about eight years of Bad Diaries Salons, where writers read bits from their early diaries. What's the difference between diaries or journals and social media? Who are you writing for and what happens to your diaries when you die?

We talk about Dr James Pennebaker's influential work on expressive writing and how it relates to diary writing. Why and how does this simple 3- or 4-step process help so many people to function well and stay healthy? Pennebaker unpicks the process of writing (as opposed to thinking) for some fascinating answers.

Writing a diary or journal when you're older can help you make sense of your life. You can see development, change, patterns. Perhaps you will see that your life is not just a patchwork of random events, but a story with a theme. And it's not over: senior diaries enrich your life, and it's never too late to start!

• Bad Diaries Salon
• Am I too old to start a diary? Debunking Age Myths All the reasons and encouragement you need.
• Tracy Farr Author
• Review of Wonderland by Paula Morris on NZ Review of Books
• Expressive writing can help your mental health, with James Pennebaker, PhD (interview on podcast Speaking of Psychology)
• Therapeutic Journaling University of Wisconsin, Madison