I was reading in an old journal the other day and was thoroughly depressed afterwords. I mean, I was such a dork when I was 16! I could read between the lines of what I was writing in my journal, because I know myself and all, and w-o-w. I wouldn’t commit anything to paper that could have the possibility of embarrassing me later (like what I read in my sister’s diary when she wasn’t around.) I never wrote what I was feeling- just boring facts and if I wrote about a guy I liked, it was in the most carefully worded way as to not come back to haunt me. And I constantly name-dropped. I’d put the names of everyone who came to my birthday party, but not what we did! I’d whine about wanting to be friends with cool people and who I knew in each of my classes. Ben finally asked me why I was reading it if it was making me so mad and I don’t know. The only redeeming factor was that I did write out prayers to God so it was refreshing to read that! But seriously- I have issues- besides my horrible grasp of spelling and grammar. (when I typed that, I misspelled grammar, and now I misspelled “misspelled”. 2x now) In my first entry in my journal I wrote “I probably won’t write in this every night but what I write will be important” How ironic.
From the next entry: (at a cross country meet)“While we were resting, Nicki started to throw water on Erin and got her, then Erin tried to throw water on Nicki, she missed and hit several Carthage guys. It was really funny at the time. One guy got it bad. Instead of being angry he thought it was cool and the other guys slapped him high-5’s like he was some hero or something. We rode with Oakdale. Well I have to go to school! catch you later.”
From another entry marked One of the Best Days of My Life: “Ashley ——, our homecoming queen, (see the name dropping? lol) invited me to go to a bible study. I thought “cool”. (yes, I really did put cool in quotes!) Dustin and Josh were there (both of whom I had rather large crushes on) and I ended up talking to them most of the time while Ashley went to pick up Clay —— (Jonah). After an awesome bible study, we went to Fayetteville with Hailey, Clay and Landon. It was totally awesome! I have practice today! UGH! Gotta go!”
Now this gem: “It’s weird how things change and you really don’t notice until you stop and think how you were a year ago. Or 6 months in my case. Hannah is dating Carter ——-, he is nice, and is being (Hannah, I wasn’t clear about that in my journal who I was talking about) the first real friend to me since we met. I have my driver’s permit. I can talk to Josh and Dustin without feeling stupid. A good thing I don’t like them. (yeah, I put that as a disclaimer, just in case…) I sprained my ankle running.”
I’m so going to look at this blog in 10 years and do the exact same thing with my writing that I’m doing now with my poor 16-year-old self. I hope you feel like you know me better now- I doubt I really gave any huge insight to myself! 