A peek into my diary

I spent some (long overdue) time this past weekend sifting through boxes of old stuff in my basement. I was making a lot of progress until I found my “special” boxes. These are two giant Rubbermaid containers my Mom used to store items of sentimental value. What did I find?

Everything from high school softball t-shirts to greeting cards from my first birthday. It took me almost 4 hours to go through these two boxes alone.

My best find: all of my old diaries. I started keeping one at the beginning of second grade and continued well through high school. I read each one cover to cover, laughing and crying and experiencing each of the seemingly monumental events all over again. (Though entries written at ages 14-17 were almost exclusively about boys!)

These are some of the gems I read:

Age 6 Month Old: (My Mom wrote this in the diary section of my baby memory book.) Under Likes and Dislikes – “Adrienne definitely dislikes her strained meats. She lets it sit on her tongue while her eyes water and she pretends she is choking.” (Dramatic from birth apparently.)

Age 9: “Jessica is a good friend, but she lies and has bad taste in boys. Today I went to Amanda’s house. I learned how to jump out of her tree. I have never been to Florida.”  (And I suppose at 9 my taste in boys was so refined. LOL)

Age 12: ” My Mom won’t drop me off at the mall with my friends. OVERPROTECTIVE! I admit there are a lot of psychos out there but most 12 year old girls can defend themselves. I mean it’s not like some person would take you right out of the mall without someone noticing and doing something about it. Get real!” (I got a good laugh out of this one, as that is precisely what we hear about happening in abductions on the news. I remember being furious about this. Silly me.)

Age 13: “I got in major trouble for those C’s I got on my French and Advanced Math tests. Then I got in trouble for calling this mean rude girl a curse word. My Mom is making me apologize for being rude to her at school in front of all my friends and she is checking my assignment notebook to make sure I am studying when I’m supposed to be. I wish I could be 12 again. I never got in trouble then.”

Age 15: “Furry (my cat) keeps peeing on the beds. The vet thinks he is having kidney failure. If he is, we might have to put him to sleep. It makes me want to cry just thinking about it. Maybe if I talk to him and explain what will happen if he doesn’t stop, he will straighten up his act. But what if that doesn’t work and he really does have kidney failure and we have to put him to sleep? I can’t stand to think about it anymore.” (Did I really believe, at 15, that I could reason with my cat? Oy.)

I used to think it was odd that friends and family would buy me daily entry diaries for my birthday. Because it was so close to January 1st, everyone had the same idea and I’d always end up with two or three for the same year. Now, I couldn’t be more thankful.