I recently came across my old journals. (Or rather, I finally had the courage to dig them out of the back of my closet and read them). My earliest entries are pretty hilarious. When I was seven or eight I gave each day a letter grade depending on how good or bad the day was–the funny part is seeing what exactly caused me to alter the grade. One day rated a “b” because my sister was mean to me, while another day rated a “d” because a friend at school committed the sin of losing her half of the heart-shaped friendship necklaces we had (when she was the one who bought them in the first place!).
But as I got further along with my entries, my amusement quickly turned into embarrassment. Was I really that awkward? Did I really think those things? Somehow, though, I seem to have written down only the moderately embarrassing parts of junior high, the crushes that I had forgotten about, the “important” events that seem silly now, rather than the humiliations that I cringed over and relived for years to come, the mean stuff people said to me that I can only now laugh (hesitantly) about.
Having talked to other people about their own memories of junior high, I just have to wonder–did anyone enjoy it? Why were we all so mean to each other? Or is it just that we just forgot the good things that happened or the nice things people said and held on only to the bad stuff?
But I still can’t bring myself to read the high school entries or (oh god!) the college entries. Talk about embarrassing. I can only imagine the stuff I’m going to be laughing at myself for ten years from now. I’m glad I don’t keep a diary anymore. Oh, wait a minute…
Comments