Evolution

I’ve been keeping some form of a journal or diary since elementary school. It all started with a little diary that locked with a key – perfect for writing third grade secrets. As I got older, I would use spiral-bound notebooks or the nice journals you buy at Barnes & Noble. (I often got them as gifts because it seems an obvious thing to give to a person who likes to write.) As I got older and carpal tunnel set in, I posted on Live Journal instead. The primary difference, aside from the medium, is that I no longer wrote for myself. I had an audience.

I still try to hand write in a journal on occasion, though it often causes a carpal tunnel flare-up. And my handwriting is much worse than it used to be.

For years, I kept every diary/journal I wrote in. A few years back, I looked at my very first one. I believe I was eight or nine when I got it. As you might imagine, it contained no deep thoughts – just a brief summary of my day and escapades with friends I can no longer remember. My entire world was home, school, church, and Girl Scouts, more or less. I didn’t feel the diary was worth keeping.

Recently, I pulled the remaining journals out of a storage container to arrange them on a new shelf. I thought it might be time to revisit them. I haven’t read most of them since I filled out their pages.

Last Saturday, I started reading through the journal I kept from 1991-1993, covering most of my junior year up through a few weeks after my high school graduation. I cringed in mortification at much of it. I had a certain obsession with an unrequited crush. Days alternated between the best day ever or the worst day of my life. My world seemed to be ending at every bad thing that happened. I clearly only saw the world in black and white. And I was so unrealistic about romantic love, clearly falling for the fantasy you only see in fairy tales and Disney movies. (And cheap romance novels, too, but I wouldn’t have known a thing about that at the time.)

So much teenage angst. I was embarrassed at myself after reading my journal, but I also had to forgive myself. What did I know of life from age 16 to 18? Hell, I’m almost 44 now and I still don’t understand anything about life.

I destroyed the notebook. It was spiral bound with pink-lined paper. It had bright pastel geometric designs on the cover. Very ‘90s. It was easy enough to rip out the pages and run them through the shredder. The thought of it outliving me and anyone finding it and reading it – it’s unthinkable.

I’m glad I read it, though. As cringeworthy as it was, it reminds me that I’ve come a long way from that awkward teenager. I have a much thicker skin, for a start. I have the strength and experience to handle adversity. I have more realistic expectations about the way life is – the way love is.

My life certainly didn’t turn out the way I thought it would at that age, but I’m so very glad it didn’t. I’ve had more adventure in my life than I ever dreamed possible.

And now I have other journals to read. The next one picked up where my last one left off in the summer of 1993 and finished up just before I started classes at Ohio State in 1997. That will, no doubt, cover a lot, as I attended community college, dropped out to go to travel agent school, failed as a travel agent, then went back to college (Bowling Green State University).

I may have more to say about this topic after reading that. It’s interesting to look at the evolution of my life.