First, the pay-it-forward updates, because I think at least one of them is ending today:
Scenic Overlook is starting a new contest.
Honest and Truly! is showing a giftie she got and starting a new contest.
Second, I am having super-fun shopping for Erin‘s prize, and I really do recommend this pay-it-forward thing if you enjoy shopping and want a little morale boost. It is FUN. And it is so pleasant to have something to look for at the store other than toilet paper, shampoo, and cat food. I have to stop myself from doing a new one EVERY WEEK.
And lastly, a confession/edit: I was talking with my mom about the I LOVE CHRISTOPHER!!!! post, and I was telling her about an edit I made to something I quoted, because I felt the original version was too excruciating, and she said I HAD to come clean because these are NO GOOD if they’re edited to save myself embarrassment.
Okay FINE. FINE. What I TOLD you I wrote was: “I think that my love for him is different from my love of David. With David, I was in love with his appearance and not his personality.” There is a snip between those two sentences. What I ACTUALLY wrote was:
I think that my love for him is different from my love of David. My love of David was a wild, crazy, all sex, no feelings love. I was in love with his appearance and not his personality.
OKAY? OKAY? My face is BURNING. “All sex”!! “Wild, crazy”!! What was I TALKING about?? I was ELEVEN! And had had NO PHYSICAL CONTACT WHATSOEVER with any boy! And was still in the “Ewww, kissing” stage! AAAaaaghhh!! The pain of encountering one’s previous self!
Actually, I know exactly what I was talking about. I was quoting the adults who had taught me thoroughly about the differences between Physical Attraction and Actual Feelings, and I thought I was being Very Sophisticated to talk as if I understood the difference and could apply it to my crushes. What I MEANT was that I thought I’d only liked David for his looks, but that I liked Christopher for his INNERMOST BEING. (That contention is UTTER CRAP. David was a sweetheart and a nice boy who was kind to other people; Christopher was a young sociopath, a player learning the game, and not a nice boy at all.)
My mom points out that this is why it’s a bad idea for parents to read their children’s diaries: imagine if she’d read that! Imagine how flipped out she’d have gotten, and over nothing of substance! I was merely trying to prove how much more Real my feelings for my current crush were than for my previous crush (actual difference: NONE), and my mother would have been freaking out that her 11-year-old was having sex and/or interested in sex. Sigh.
I think this is awesome and your Mom is totally right. If I were to go back and read some of my own diaries, I am positive that all the stupid things I wrote would not have any actual EXPLAINABLE REASONS behind them, as yours does.
Also, when I was 12, my friend Katie and I called each other – for some inexplicable reason, except maybe MMmm, CANDY – Mike and Ike. Back then, it was cool to write notes on each other’s binders. We had an overnight field trip coming up and she wrote on mine : “Ike, {blah blah blah, 7th grade chatter} I really hope we get to sleep in the same bunk [cabin] on our field trip! Love, Mike”
Of course my Mom saw it and flipped out, and didn’t buy my explanation.
I’m LOVING these entries…but I’m really starting to wonder just where in the hell MY old diaries are?
Must find and burn! FIND AND BURN!
You are funny for coming clean.
Wow! I’m so excited about winning the pay-it-forward contest! It’s the first one I won. I didn’t enter many because I thought I’d have trouble following through on the– well– pay-it-forward part. But it’ll be fun.
Note to self: do not read daughter’s diaries when she is older.
LOL! I feel exactly the same way when I encounter anything I wrote back when I was a teen. I tossed all my journals because I couldn’t stand re-reading them. I kept one when I was first married too. That one is even worse.
You are so brave for even posting the edited version! I burned all of mine a long time ago when I started living with roommates in college – didn’t want to take any chances there!
omg. That is so much funnier. I can’t even breathe I’m laughing so hard! Thank you for posting. hehe
I think your mom is right. The utter humiliation of 11-year old diary reading is all part of the process, right?
This is awesome. And I kind of love your mom for her attitude, and for her insistence that you come clean.
And this is why I don’t regret pitching all of my journals in a melodramatic tizzy before college.
That is even funnier! HA! I love it!
hmmm… maybe that was why you always had more money than me in high school!!! You were operating a Corner Store! :)
You trashy eleven year old, you.
My mother routinely read anything of mine she could find, and of other people’s too, actually, including her boyfriend (she went through all his stuff just like she went through my backpack all the time!), and one time I had written something about my New Year’s Resolution being to run away from home. Now, aside from obvious reasons of why I would WANT to run away, I really just wanted to go somewhere new and have fun. My mother, of course, took it entirely personally, and was a total bitch to me, but wouldn’t admit why, until my grandmother finally told me what had happened. Definitely, never read stuff.
That is so funny.
I have to say, I remember *thinking* about the excitement, the curiosity, the fascination of sex when I was about 12. In reality, though, I was actually ALL JAZZED UP because I got to hold hands, for like, a minute with my crush.
This is all to say… OMG I have two daughters. The older is 8. That is only 3 years away from 11. And she already has a diary which I’ve already sworn to NOT read. Can I freak out now?
Yes, those were some awkward times, knowing so little, and thinking – and feeling – so much… Not that today is any better when looked at from a distance of thirty years down the line. But. Sort of cute to read ‘other’ journals – and painful, absolutely, to read one’s own.
That is just so funny, the dramatics of an 11 year old. I love that your embarrassed about it now, I totally get that. Very good.
LMFAO…
If it’s any consolation whatsoever, I am getting cringey, heart-poundy, and twingey with you.
You are a brave, braaaaave woman, Swistle.
I burn all my diaries, shortly after they’re finished.
Ack! I am all red-faced and embarrassed because these read EXACTLY like my diaries. I tried so hard to sound so grown up and cool that it’s painful. When I was about 13 I addressed them to my future daughter (alternately named Elisabeth, Andrea, and Melissa), so she could learn from my worldly-wise advice, of course. I clearly remember wanting to be all cool and under control and knowing what the “right” thing to do was, and maybe my diary was the only place where I could live out that persona. Thank you for posting your own entries, it makes me feel better knowing I wasn’t the only one who did this.
Still though, you were RIGHT to come clean with US. *tee hee, giggling*
Oh, I love this. I am cringing right along with you, and definitely laughing but not *at* you because if I had kept any sort of diary at that age it would have read pretty much exactly the same way. So really, I’m cringing for myself because ack the awkwardness that was middle school! (uh, and high school and a fair bit of college. shudder)
Wow. I don’t think I could do posts like these because I wouldn’t come clean at all. At least you have a sympathetic, understanding audience. I mean, I haven’t been shrieking with laughter every time I think of that wild, crazy, all-sex love you had for David.
Oh, and I completely understand the idea of conforming to what those YA books said we should be like. We shouldn’t have been reading Sweet Valley High in elementary school.
This is brilliant. You are absolutely wonderful for posting these! And don’t feel too bad – we all wrote cringingly awful notes and poetry way back when. I even had mine published in the high school “Literary Magazine”. God, I would hate to see an issue of that right now.
I love your new title banner. THANK YOU for being politically free. I really is refreshing :)
That’s why I never read notes as a teacher. They were WAY too emotionally scarring and I never knew how truthful they were anyway. Straight in the trash!
THIS is AWESOME. I am going to have to go dig up my old diaries. Maybe they are in that box of junk from my mom’s house…I’m inspired!! So funny!
dear swistle,
OMG I LOVE YOU SOOOOOO MUCH!!!
love, alice
First, your title banner is AWESOME! I’m so tired of politics, blah, blah, blah.
Second,I apparently was one of very few wierd girls who never kept a diary. Reading those entries just confirmed I made the right decision! :)
I’m having small panic attack, trying to recall where I stashed all my old diaries. (Or, “journals,” as I called them, because for some reason I thought “journals” were so much more sophisticated than “diaries.” Pffft.) Heaven help me if my mother finds them in a box in her garage and READS them. *faints*
Awesome stuff! Oh, the sexual longing for Hot David!
I am LOVING these posts that are so totally cringe-worthy because it makes my own pre-teen writing seem more normal than I thought possible.
I was SO secretive with my parents, hid journals like they were treasure maps pointing to buckets of gold and NEVER talked about boys with ANYONE lest the boy in question find out. I was ruled by my fear of mortification and hey, turns out, so was everyone.
ANYWAY, it’s also making me think about the box of journals (meticulously labeled from 1985-1993) stashed high up in a closet at my house right now. (Still hiding them! I’m 34!) The plan was to burn them before we moved and then I ran out of time…to burn or not to burn?
These are so funny – maybe I should re-read and pull out some keepers.
Then again, I’m still ruled by mortification so maybe I just need a match.
In any case, thanks for being braver than me. :)