An entry from my sophomore year in high school. I read my prose, and I don’t know whether to laugh or burn up the pages. I am so dramatic. Thank God I’ve calmed down in my old age. (Yeah, right.)
Oh, and as always with these adolescent writings – I cannot help but interject snarky comments.
It’s a self-protective measure.
January
Oh, I went to CCD today [Ed: I can’t remember what that stands for. I know that it means “Sunday school”. Beth?], and after I walked over to church alone. It was really windy, and freezing, and I was 20 minutes early, so everything was still and the church parking lot was quiet.
A.W., my former love [Ed: This is extremely dramatic language. We had huge crushes on each other in the 6th grade. That’s it. He was the one who gave me the “spitball valentine” – Okay, onward:], I still secretly adore him, with all my heart, [Ed: Okay, Sheila. Got it.] was sauntering along in front of me. Then he turned and called out to me. I ran up to him. It is so odd that I love JW so intensely [Ed: Who? I have no idea who “JW” is. So much for the intensity of my love], but I can still feel my heart pound when AW talks to me. Anyway, we walked into church together. It was so funny – we talked about our service projects we have to do, and how neither of us had started ours. I love how he laughs. He’s got a lopsided grin. I also love that he called out to me. I still haven’t forgotten 6th grade, which I fondly call “The Andrew Year”. [Ed: Oh God, I am such a geek.] I have liked AW for about 5 years now. Since we were kids. [Ed: Uhm, you still are a kid.] I know I don’t have a chance with him now, though, because he’s so popular, and I’m not. 6th grade was a long time ago. But I still want him as a friend.
Oh, forgot to tell about this: THE PLAY THAT I WROTE FOR DRAMA WAS PICKED TO ENTER THE CONTEST! [Please stop screaming, Sheila.] I can NOT believe it. I thought it was sappy. I still do. All the people do in it is cry and feel sorry for themselves. But it was picked anyway. I don’t really know what you get if you win, but I doubt I’ll win. I think it goes over the 30 minute time limit anyway. I mean, it’s 17 pages long!
My letter from Dee should arrive any day now. Oh, I love the feeling when I’ve made a new friend! [Ed: Dee ended up being a psycho. Maybe I’ll tell the sordid tale someday.]
I am now deeply immersed in The Poseidon Adventure. I honestly believe that if I had a form which asked “Favorite Author”, Paul Gallico would be mine. [Ed: Wow, I had completely forgotten how obsessed I was with Gallico.] Some of his writing is grotesque, scary, morbid, and this particular book of his is a test of courage of a bunch of unlikely people tossed together in a life-and-death situation. It actually is a test of my own courage to read it. I believe that Paul Gallico wrote this book for a purpose: to get the reader thinking: Oh God, could I survive such a thing? Would I stay sane? What would I do? Would I be one of the generous ones, helping others? Or would I turn into one of the selfish ones, only wanting to save myself? At times, reading it, I feel depressed and ashamed of my weakness and my flimsy personality, because I know that I could not endure what those people went through without committing suicide or something. But I do know, that I would feel hope as well, and not just see darkness, death, and destruction around me, but also see the end of the nightmare and see to the time when we were saved. If I let my hope go, then I really would die. Somehow, I feel, after a lot of serious thought on this, and on myself, that instead of thinking, “Oh God, the end of me is near,” I would be thinking, “I can’t wait until I get out of here.” I don’t know how I know this, but I have always been optimistic. I think that it is about my favorite trait of mine. And I admit, there aren’t many likable traits. I am selfish, mean sometimes, I fume and rage, and I never tell anyone what’s wrong, but in the end I can always see the sun, or the joke. Like, if I find myself in a miserable, awful, embarrassing, frustrating, totally disagreeable situation, I just keep thinking: “I WILL LIVE THROUGH THIS. I WILL NOT DIE”. And it honestly helps. So does thinking about Anne Frank and how she said, “I still believe people are good in their hearts.”
I am my own psychiatrist. Although I am miserable now, and I feel terrible, the sun will come up tomorrow, and life will go on, and I will feel love and happiness and success. I think this is really what keeps me going, what boosts me up, even when I feel like giving up.
“I am my own psychiatrist.”
Even then? ;-)
I am very glad I got a jump-start on psychiatry.
Everything feels intensely dramatic when you’re a teenager, Red. Now, if your sophomore year prose sounded like something from William F. Buckley, that would be just cause for mortification. ;-)
Sure, everything feels intensely dramatic – but see what happens to you if you decide to post your adolescent journal entries, and see how they sound to you now!
I don’t remember being so melodramatic about everything, but I have to say that not a hell of a lot has changed.
And yes. The William F. Buckley phase came later.
We are sure glad you lived through it….most of us do.
I lived through it myself, even though I got kicked out of CCD in the 3rd grade. Yes, kicked out. I know, I know, you are asking how do you get kicked out of CCD? I don’t know, other than I never did the “homework” and I constantly disrupted the class with my big mouth. That’s what 3rd graders do when he thinks his life sucks because his parents are seperated.
CCD is the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine – but I never knew that until you wondered about it.
It sounds very socialist, now that I think about it.
It sounds a bit fascistic to me. Or like some German youth group.
“see what happens to you if you decide to post your adolescent journal entries, and see how they sound to you now!”
OK, I do have to admit that I usually cringe in a visible way when reading something that I wrote in my youth. And yes, publishing any of it on the Internet would be about as pleasant as taking a dip in a sewage lagoon.
To me, your stuff just seems sweet and very precocious. However, that probably is because it’s yours and not mine. So, you’re right – I’ll try not to give ya such a hard time about the cringing…
Well, nobody’s FORCING me to embarrass myself! I’m the one who started up the whole Diary Friday thing, so I have nobody to blame but myself. :)
It’s true you’re responsible for Diary Friday, Red, but the fact that you found the courage to do it doesn’t make you magically immune to the natural human response to the publication of such things.
You deserve some slack and I’m gonna give it to you whether you like it or not!
Thanks, dude. :)
Have a great weekend.
Refer to your email if you want to find out who JW is. Remember, I have lived all these events along side of you- for better or for worse– ;)
Pony up – who is JW?
yes, please. forward on the JW information!
Beth has informed me of the details of my own life.
John Walsh.
I think I said maybe 3 words to him, all in all. But the love was very very deep.