Reading Old Diaries
Reading Old Diaries
Love, life, death, and hilarity
“Grateful acknowledgement is made to my parents, because the money to buy this book came from mowing the lawn.” — Inscription at the beginning of one of my diaries.
I wish I’d kept diaries all my life as diligently — though admittedly, sporadically — as I did from the ages of 14 through 17, in two blank books with intricate fake leather bindings. The diaries provide such a vivid and entertaining record of those years, and there’s so much I wouldn’t remember if I didn’t have that record.
Spurred by writing last week about my friend Mary Grace, a main character in my junior high and high school diaries, I opened these time capsules once again. I’m always amazed at the window they provide on the person I was then, during a time that’s now so many lifetimes ago.
One surprise, on reading these now, is how philosophically inclined I was. Is that a feature of being a teenager? I regularly delved into my thoughts on life and my search for meaning. I clearly had lots of ups and downs, and that hasn’t changed, because that’s life. But in typical teenager fashion, I was a bit more dramatic about them at the time, which is amusing to me now — though it wouldn’t have been then.
April 15, 1976 [age 14]: I hate the heat when it stifles my mind and numbs my thoughts. My life seems empty, as empty as my mind. I have no reason to exist; there is no excitement, no happiness, nor thoughts or ideas. We are all alone, separated from one another, as the wind sweeps through the trees.
April 17, 1976: I always think how ridiculous our lives are. We want so much, but what good does it do to have what we want? And yet, there must be some use to living. But don’t think I’m depressed, and tired of living — oh no, I have only begun! I have so much life ahead of me, and who knows what the future holds?
June 15, 1976: I wrote on the 2nd that life is meaningless — but today I’ve just read “Cat’s Cradle” by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. and it has just stopped raining and the sun is peeking out and an owl is hooting, the breeze is rustling softly through the trees, and downstairs, music is playing on the radio. But it is mostly the book that has shown me the true, beautiful, useless fact that there is a meaning.
My philosophical musings are interspersed with the events of the day and my thoughts on people and things: parties, family vacations, movies I saw, books I read, boys I liked, my boyfriend, my parents, my sister, my friends. My friends.
The diaries begin in my last year of junior high, not the happiest time in my life. I didn’t fit in, to say the least; we endured the horror of junior high P.E. classes, complete with a sadistic teacher, mean girls, and horrendously unflattering, super short, one-piece gym suits; and although I could see my house in the distance from my math classroom, we weren’t allowed to leave the school grounds even for lunch. My friends and I referred to junior high as a prison, or the “place where bad people go when they die.”
Although I long remembered junior high, I’d forgotten how strong my emotions were then, and how much love I felt for my friends and family, even during those dark times — something I’m struck by every time I read these old diaries. Not that I ever said it out loud back then. Though I addressed my diaries as “you,” as if I were speaking to someone.
April 6, 1976: Because we had to read — Expletive Deleted — Spoon River Anthology, we had guest speakers from churches come to speak about death. Well, well, well, if I now, suddenly, had a terminal illness which would absolutely undoubtedly bring upon my death very soon, I would call some people to my bedside and tell them what I truly thought about them.
July 2, 1976: One day I told you that I’d tell you more about what I’d do if I knew (absolutely positively) that I were going to die soon. Well, I will tell you. I would tell everyone I love that I love them — well, that’s a lot of people. I would hug and kiss everyone.
That sentiment included my parents and their friends, whom I especially appreciated during my junior high years. I could relate to them more than to many of the kids I was around. At the same time, I often felt misunderstood by them. What teenager doesn’t?
April 6, 1976: My goodness, how lucky I am to have such wonderful parents.
May 8, 1976: Mother just told me to write that she loves me a lot, and every day I’m prettier, etc. Well, I’m not very pretty, but that’s not my main concern. Right now, I’m concerned with my writing.
I graduated from junior high in 1976 and moved on to a small alternative high school: the University High School, aka Uni. Even the building, on the university campus, was much nicer.
Before I revisited my diaries, I remembered being much happier at Uni. But I suspected that my memory of that time was tinged by nostalgia. It turns out I was in fact so much happier that first year of high school, in an environment that was much better suited to my weird self. My diary from the time is full of entries verifying that.
October 25, 1976: I am so happy, I really am! I love Uni; everyone is so friendly there! I love the people, and the atmosphere!
There’s so much in these two small books, but what I write about most often, especially in the high school years, is relationships: which friends I’m annoyed with and which ones I’m appreciating, and how that changes over time. These reflections are all the more poignant because I’m still good friends with some of the people featured in my diaries, and because some are gone forever.
A thread that persists to this day is my inclination to see all sides of people, whether or not I like them. As happy as I was at the time and as much as I loved my friends, I was also realistic about them — sometimes in thoughtful ways, sometimes in amusing ways.
December 6, 1978: I love my friends very much, but that very fact is the only thing that keeps me from clobbering them at times.
I don’t know if I was as realistic about myself, but I certainly wrote about myself, too. Though I was a lot less self-aware than I am now (I hope!), I looked inward a lot. Some of my self-reflections from the time crack me up now.
August 11, 1976: Sometimes I feel that I am not myself at all, but rather another person who is looking at Rosana and wondering: How does she ever manage to get through life like that?
December 25, 1976 [age 15]: It’s amazing how much I’ve changed since I began writing in this book [on February 3, 1976, age 14]. I keep thinking: this is it — I’ve changed all I can, I have become aware of everything and I know the world. Yet I keep knowing more, changing more.
Before re-reading my diaries, I didn’t recall the extent of this self-reflection. I also didn’t recall how many parties, large and small, we had throughout high school. Sometimes, in my diaries, I reflect on the gatherings; sometimes I just detail them, as well as our wanderings around the halls at school and around the university campus. And it’s all mixed in with the meaning of life.
December 16, 1978: Today Mary bought some mistletoe and put it above the counseling office door. It was good, because we got to kiss a lot of people who really needed it.
June 16, 1978: When we were out on the roof on the night of junior prom, I wandered off slightly from Susan and Howard. I looked at the sky, which was beginning to darken. I saw a beautiful scene, with a tower of the old building west of the Union against the sky, and the first star standing by it, and after nearly a school year of forgetting, I remembered the meaning of life. The meaning of life is that there is no meaning, but we can make one. Everyone who is happy creates his/her own meaning. For me this scene, with its beauty, infinite power, and its feeling of enchantment, was one meaning to live for.
As long ago and far away as these diaries are from my current life, I see connections in there to the person I am now: my love of writing (and semicolons!), my attachments to friends, and even some of my feelings about life.
June 26, 1978 [last page of the first diary]: And here I come to the end. Many pages were wasted — or, I could say, all. But actually, most were of use because I had to write things.
Back then, I wrote because I had to write things. I still do.
Did you keep a diary when you were younger, or do you now? (These days it’s called journaling, though I do not approve of “verbifying” nouns like that. 😊) Have you been surprised by what you wrote in the past? Let me know in the comments!
Not keeping a journal is one of the few regrets I have in life. I have one small book that I wrote in for a few months back in high school & that is all I could manage! I’m definitely not a writer. The little that I did write in that book was very superficial! There was nothing profound or philosophical. 🤷🏻♀️ However superficial it might have been there were events that I did not remember happening thus the wish that I had continued.
I wish I had kept a journal back in the day. It's possible that because they were called diaries, I associated them with girlish things. But I was a young male and quite stoopid.