I kept one from about age 8 until my college years, when I destroyed it. I was uncomfortable with the amount of self-revelation and horrified at the thought of someone else ever reading it. Mid-40s now and wish I had kept it.
I have a log of plants found at state parks for a couple years about 20 years ago. The observations are interesting. I can see that a diary written decades ago when I remembered everything would have been great for when my perfect memory went to hell. I actually was able to sketch fairly well back then too.
I buy one every year and have every intention of keeping it. Travel tends to get documented. But day to day life and even “important” events - not so much.
Never kept a diary (with one exception), and I’ve never regretted it. I have no desire to record my personal thoughts. They are my thoughts, and not for anyone, including future me.
In high school, one English teacher required we keep a “diary” for a half semester. The only requirement was we write something in it daily. I typically wrote a paragraph describing the characters and events in whatever book I was currently reading. That was the same teacher that required we used ink instead of pencil and cursive instead of print writing. I was not happy with that teacher. 
Why are there no options for people who keep diaries?
I always have, though it’s not an everyday thing as it was when I was a lad. i can verify that at least one of my cousins regrets not keeping one; she was trying to track down some information about our grandmother last summer and needed my diary to do it (and was probably annoyed, though she didn’t show it, that she had to wait for me to allow access to my journal from the summer of 80).
I kept a diary when I was a kid, but most of the entries boiled down to, “I’m tired, going to bed.” I’ve sort of kept a journal as an adult, but I don’t think I’ve written in it within the last 6-8 years. Now that I’ve thought about it, I’m probably going to shred the thing. The kind of things I write about are not things I want to revisit, nor are they the kind of thing I’d want other people to read.
Under 30, wish I’d kept one. I’ve tried many times, and it never stuck.
My memory is awful, unbelievably so for someone as young as I am. I live life like I’m a new person every three months, because if it happened longer ago than that it’s not real to me any more. Obviously, some events and people were to influential for me to lose them, but those are few and far between. I have no recollection of my childhood before nine or ten, and very little memory from that point forward until the summer before freshman year. From there, it’s spotty at best but more clear than my childhood. Thank og for old friends, or I’d probably assume I congealed somewhere last June.
Thanks samclem.
I wish I kept a medical diary. I’ve sort of started doing it with a loose leaf binder but a hard bound book would have worked better.
Not hugely interested in a daily diary although it would have been interesting after-the-fact.
I have one on paper but don’t update it much. I have a livejournal as well. I always resolve to do btter at the new year…lol
I kept diaries on and off from about age 10 to sometime in college. A few times as an adult.
Rereading these later my reaction (not unusual I see) is always horror followed by destruction.
I wish I’d never bothered. I don’t anymore. The few times I feel strongly enough that venting through writing is required, I find anonymous posting on the internet is far more helpful. Also, when I read old posts (and I suppose I’ve got more than 13 years worth floating around in cyberspace) I feel good about them, not horrible, I wonder why? Maybe knowing other people will be reading it keeps me from being a whiny bitch.
Age 41.
I used to do the journal thing, in college; they are long gone now, but even 5-10 years after, reading them, I was amazed by how much I’d forgotten that had happened, and at how much I’d changed.
Thanks!
First of all, only girls keep diaries. Men have journals, you see. 
I wish I had written down my war experiences better. I kept a blog on my MySpace account, but it didn’t really take. What I did write, though, was pretty cool, I think. My mother says that somewhere out there are my grandfather’s WWII journals. I’d love to get my hands on those, and to have been able to give my grandkids an Iraq War journal.