I tried to read another diary and I couldn't get past the first page without blogging
There are four more notebooks to go in the re-read my high school diaries series, and I'm sweating a little bit about this project I've taken on. For one thing, I'm afraid reading my past writing might be slowly making me a worser writer. The more I read paragraphs like the following, the more I think this might pass for acceptable syntax:
Aug 14, 1997
Pretty soon I'm going to find myself a full blown adult. But I guess there's nothing I can do about it. I'm MAKING it happen.
Pretty soon I'm going to find myself a full blown adult? Where? Under the bed? If I keep on reading these journals, I'll probably find one on the next page..
Oh! That was a sex joke I made there! See what I said about this project dumbing down my writing?
Because that's the other problem with reading these journals... so much sexiness! It's basically the only side of my life I felt was important enough to chronicle. Making out... making out... seriously, I could go the rest of my life without reading the words "second base" in print. And I don't know whether to feel repulsed or titillated. These days I'm closer to being a parent of a teenager than to being an actual teenager, so I guess the tales of young libido should make me nervous. But I also associate with the person in these journals. Indeed, it's as if all the characters aged with me, and I can picture my adult friends running around after reunion playing spin the bottle for seven minutes in the closet. Pot bellies and all. G-ross!
But even so, reading about sex cannot help but be (um, dare I be honest?) a turn on. Which feels weird at a time in my life when I would prefer not to engage with sexual thoughts. Seriously, if any stray desires crops up in me, I just can't ask Dan for help... having sex at this stage in my pregnancy is a difficulty akin to circus acrobatics.
And yet it's hard to stay away from the project. There are four journals I haven't read yet, and who knows what they may hold? Right now the children are sweetly jumping on their beds, and the next diary beckons to me. (They asked me to tie their legs in restraints because they're being mermaids. This is the reason I'm trying to throw these journals away, so the incriminating evidence is out of the house by the time the boys realize where their kinky streak came from.)
So I have to press on. What will I find in the rest of these journals? Will it be exciting or horrifying? I can only take a tip from my younger self and embrace the unknown:
I feel like I am a clear shelf. I don't know what I'll put on it yet, but it's gonna be important. I can imagine these shelves five years in the future. As I look at them, imaginary objects float in and out of their shadow and grace my life with their presence. Photographs drift in and linger, than drift away as well. I am not afraid.