In the box was yet another box, a metal lock-box. I wiped off the dust and wondered where the key might be. It turned out to be unlocked and it was filled with these:
This is gonna be great, I told myself. A few days later, not having to be anywhere early I settled back into bed with a mug of coffee nudging the dog and cat for some space. Move over you two! Opening the small red diary I eagerly anticipated pearls of wisdom and profound insights from my younger self. 100 pages later I realized my journals were like a train wreck. The pages were terrible, but I couldn't look away. The little diary was followed by the steno book and finally the spiral notebook, I kept reading until everything came to an abrupt halt with this:
What? I turned the page. Nothing. The rest of the notebook is BLANK. Too fat to write? Too self-conscious that I might be fat to write? I was 15 when I scrawled these words. I don't think I wrote in a journal again for years.
Who was that girl? I was really disappointed. She had no wisdom and precious little insight, wrote endlessly about boys (especially certain boys) and hanging out at the mall, worried about being liked or fat or both, cried a river and ate mountains of ice cream at the now-defunct Alaskaland. And then there was the whining. Some of my angst about certain boys went on FOREVER. Enough already. Get over it! Like Bill Murray's character in Meatballs I wanted to chant, "It just doesn't matter!" Oh, but it did when I was 14. Its a wonder that metal box didn't explode embedding its emotional shrapnel into the attic walls!
While she didn't have the insight or wisdom I expected, my younger self jumped forward from the pages with gifts. I wasn't always comfortable with the packaging, but I receive them now with grace, humility and gratitude. I share with you seven of them.
1. Writing it down helps. It seems that my diaries served as a sort of teen "morning pages" that Julia Cameron talks about in The Artist's Way. I didn't censor myself. My handwriting was terrible. I seldom corrected grammar, spelling, or sentence structure. I got the crap out on the paper and I did so almost every day for several years of my young life.
2. Simple things are important. Yes, sometimes I wrote about the clothing or other stuff I bought, but mostly it was the gatherings with friends or family. We baked cakes together, made a silly movie, stayed up all night at Barb's house reading parts of Sisterhood is Powerful out loud, went to school dances and plays, enjoyed camping, retreats, hiking, flea market and beach trips.
3. Some friends endure. Many of the people who were my best friends in Junior High and High School are still my friends. Sure the closeness of our relationships has waxed and waned over the years complicated by distance, marriages, children, and illnesses. I am struck by the strength of some of them. My BFF Tracy was wise beyond her years then as she is now. Still one of the kindest people I know, she called me recently after the sudden death of one our high school friends and as we talked the years melted away. We were girls again, laughing and crying and talking about those certain boys.
4. Risks are necessary for growth. I signed up for drama class as an elective in High School. Drama, well not the acting kind, was never on my radar before that. I didn't record why I said yes (perhaps so I didn't have to take art), but there are lessons I learned in that class that stay with me still. I had a growing political awareness (this was 1970-73) and I must have been a bit vocal about it. In History class we were assigned group projects. I went to the teacher, Mr. Miller, telling him that most of the students in the class didn't share my politics and asking if I could have a different assignment. He let me do one on the history of protest through music. I got an A. We wore black arm bands in May 1971 in solidarity with the May Day Protests against the Vietnam War. There was some discussion about whether we should be sent home from school or required to remove the armbands. In the end, neither happened.
4.1 Some risks aren't very smart. We were a group of good (mostly) kids who had some fairly decent parenting, but that didn't stop us from doing dumb or risky things. One Halloween my friend Nancy and I visited mischief and mayhem upon the neighborhood. We filled mail boxes with corn, toilet papered trees and bushes, and soaped windows. My father found out and I had to apologize to everyone on our street and clean up the mess. My parents argued about this and in the end I was also grounded for a couple of weeks. (It must have been significant on many levels since it is the only time I record a disagreement between my parents.) I liked to sneak out at night. Another time when Tracy was staying at my house we slipped out to meet a boy she liked who lived on my street. It appears here on October 8th:
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| The word DOG is missing between "the" and "started to bark." It's all the dog's fault! |
5. I like fire. Candles and sealing wax (hey it was before the internet and cell phones) were a big part of my life. With the amount of sealing wax and number of candles my friends and I gave each other as gifts, coupled with our irresponsibility with fire (one journal details hiding a burn hole in the rug), it is a miracle we didn't burn down all of Colonial Park. Plus I write fondly about sitting up late around a campfire with cousins and friends. I still like fireplaces (my father had one added to the house about the time I was in high school), camp fires, and bonfires.
6. I love, and was loved by, my family (even when I thought I wasn't/didn't). I called my sister "Jolly Julie" for entertaining me with bad jokes. My friends thought my dad looked like Fred Astaire. My parents made it possible for me to go to school and church dances, after school activities, the library (it was conveniently located at the mall), church youth group, choir rehearsal, and school plays. As a family we went to beach, camped with extended family at state parks, went on day trips, and had unusual pets including a skunk and a goat.
7. It gets better. Yes, it does. Although it was hard to see when I was 15, high school doesn't (and didn't) last forever. My first day in 7th grade homeroom the kid behind me nicknamed me "Moby Moose." Since his last name followed mine in alphabetical order he sat behind me for the next five years, kicking my chair and calling me that name every morning. I escaped only by the creation of a newspaper staff homeroom for the students who worked on the high school paper. I loved working on the paper. It gave me a sense of freedom. I was extremely self-conscious about my weight (see photo above) and really believed that people would like me better if I was thinner. Thankfully, that got better, too. And that kid who gave me the nickname, we are still in touch, too.
I'm not sure what I'll do with those journals now. I am using the (unlocked) lock box to hold some cards and photos I want to keep. For the moment I put them on a shelf, but I'm not sure I'll ever need to read them again. Perhaps I might indulge my love of fire and burn them. I am more responsible with fire now.
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