I found the diary I kept from 6th-8th grade tucked in the back of my desk drawer. Here is a photo of it. It is 5×7 inches respectively. It is a couple hundred pages disrespectively.
The first entry is dated June 4, 1999. [I was 12 years old] The last entry is dated May 1, 2001. [I was 14]
I had bought the book from the children’s variety store “Noodle Kidoodle”. I remember being really excited to write in the journal with my new Milky Pens. They [milky pen corporations] sold black paper to write on so the ink would stand out. I defied the milky Pen Corporations but writing in my White-Paged journal.
Here is the first entry. Look at my beautiful drawn rose in the left corner.
Most entries are documentations of activities I partook in the day I wrote it. Half of them are detailed orders of what I ate at McDonalds.
I was a worried 12-year-old. In bold are excerpts. In italics are my present-day comments.
“I’m so nervous when I go to piano because I am afraid she is going to yell at me. I just practiced.” -June 5th 1999
A big source of my childhood anxiety was piano lessons. My sister and I went once a week for a half hour each. I did my homework in the room while she played, and vice-versa. We would fight over who got to go first. My sister practiced less than I, but got more praise from the teacher. I felt jealous. I intensified my need for teacher’s approval.
“I am so afraid of someone breaking into my house so I sleep with my sister. Tonight she wants to sleep by herself so I am sleeping with my mom. I have to go to bed know, BYE!” -June 5th 1999
For years, I would lie awake in bed at night waiting for someone to break in the house. I just knew it was going to happen. I had an escape plan. Crawl through my bedroom closet to my parents room. [our closets are connected] I would climb out their bedroom window because it was the closet to the ground. I was tormented whether I would grab my sister from her room first. If I left her to be stabbed by the intruder, I would never forgive myself. [I always pictured the burglar to have a long knife] In this entry, I spell “now” as “know”.
“I was listening to Steph’s CD player & I dropped it and it broke! I started to cry. But she said it was ok. The summer went so fast. My whole life is going so fast.” -August 30, 1999
Stephanie is our family friend who is a year older than me. We always used to argue, so it was unexpected that she said “it was ok”. If you’re reading this Stephanie, thank you for being the bigger person. I think it is crazy that I thought life was going so fast at the age of 12. I didn’t think humans could think philosophically that young.
“We went swimming in the pool a lot. The 1st time we went we found a dead chicken! It was in the filter!” -August 30, 1999
My father and Uncle took us kids to my other uncle’s pool to swim. The pool had not yet been cleaned or shocked. The water was green. We found a dead bird [which I thought was a chicken; which my younger cousin tried to convince was a baby dragon] in the filter. Our fathers still let us swim. I remember the water was really warm. I remember my mom cursing when we got back to the house.
“2 days ago my dad found a crying cat stuck in the rocks. I wanted to keep it but I couldn’t. It fit in the palm of your hand. [My neighbor’s] sister kept it.” -September 15, 1999
An extended family of wild cats roamed the neighborhood. I used to love cats. We couldn’t have one because my sister is deathly afraid of them. She locked herself in the car once because she saw a cat strut by. We couldn’t find her for an hour.
“Today at 8:30am, I had to be at church to sing in the choir. It was fun. During a song I started day dreaming & was still singing. I felt soo embarresed because everyone was looking at me because I sang off tune. Than we went to the bakery with Kristen [my childhood/adult best friend] & I bought a Pumpkin cookie. Later we went to the mall. I bought clothes & headbands. We looked for shoes but I didn’t find any. My sister bought an answering machine for her new phone. We are getting AOL next week.” -10/17/99
Singing off tune is so embarressing. I only started liking pumpkin flavored things a year ago, so I assume it was a pumpkin-shaped cookie; not a pumpkin-flavored one.
“Today Mom and Dad picked us up in the new car! a Toyota 4Runner. When we went to Wendy’s & I got a bacon cheese burger & frosty. Then we went to Shop Rite. Then I came home & did H.W. [homework] & went on AOL. See, Kristen [my best friend] can’t have a profile because her mom said so, so she maid one real quick, showed it to me, then deleted it. But I copied it and printed it out. Then my mom made me delete mine so I printed that too.” March 6, 2000
Remember AOL profiles?
“Today in school I won the spelling bee. I am so nervous for the school spelling be tomorrow! I also went to piano [lessons]. My throat hurts.” January 3, 2000
“Today I lost in the spelling bee on the word patriot. Too bad. My throat hurts.” -January 4th 2000
“When we were in science [class], Mrs. Pintus [the teacher] was raffleing off plastic kidneys. I saw her hand motioning the number as she wrote & guessed it right. What am I going to do with a fake kidney?” -January 5th, 2000
These were the three most exciting days in my life.
That last line of the diary cracks me up, “What am I going to do with a fake kidney?” LOL. So, what did you do with a fake kidney?
hahahah. I wonder why my teacher was auctioning that off. I think I kept it on the shelf in my room for a while…then I donated it to the local hospital.
I am getting AOL next week too!
ps. i love you more every day I read this blog