Sunday, September 17, 2006
 | Is this like putting a mirror to a mirror? Alright so I have to admit... the anxiety of the first day back at church was equivalent to the first day back in classes my senior year at UNC: I couldn't go to sleep last night. After watching the entire Anything Goes video from my sophomore year at Valley with my dad, I then retired to my room at about 1:30 to read old journal entries until I finally turned off my light at a quarter to three. What's with all of the weird nostalgia, you ask? Well, I had spent the earlier part of my Saturday in the attic with my mom, digging through boxes to find stuff she can throw away and, more importantly, stuff I can take/borrow/steal for my new apartment (<-- insert heavenly choir ahh here upon mention of the new apartment: In the process, we also dug through boxes and boxes of "family archives" -- old papers and projects and letters my sister and I wrote when we were little. One in particular that made us laugh til we cried was a letter my dad made me write him in 1992 as a punishment for not looking him in the eye when he was lecturing me. The assignment was to write why it was important to have manners. I managed to write a page and a half of stellar bullshit persuasion, but this was the clincher: "In conclusion, you should be polite and have manners because if you don't, no one will like you and you will have no one to play with." I forgot how much I used to write back in my other life - my life before UNC convinced me that if I had interests outside of theatre, I'd never make it in my career. There was one box entirely full of journals. Over a dozen. Not all diary journals, although at least half of them were. Others were quote journals or dream journals or poetry journals. I used to write poetry. A lot. I used to scribble it in the margins of my notebooks during class in high school. I only did it for myself, though. I think only once in four years did I submit something to be published in the Harbinger. I was scared to death of the judgment that would come on my writing. I was afraid people would say what I already thought about my work - that it was cheesy or cliche or stupid. But now looking back, it wasn't that bad. Okay, some of it was - some it was painfully contrived. But some of it was actually very good. As for my diary journals, I like playing the game where I turn to an entry from on or around today's date from another year and see what I wrote about -- what was going on in my life at the time. Here are a few excerpts: 2003: "I ask myself what I'm going to do with my life and kick myself for not working hard enough." 2004: "I can't believe I didn't. It would have been so easy, I don't know why I am such a nervous wussy. I wish my journal entries would stop sounding like a 12 year-old wrote them - good God am I really regressing that much??" 2005 is packed up in my most recent journal that is being sent across the US via the slowest rate in USPS history, but I'm pretty sure that was during my chronicle of my hopeless infatuation with a much older man. And 2006? Well, this is it. Blogging has competely changed the structure of my journaling. I guess it really doesn't matter because either way, what's in my head gets written and processed. But sometimes I think I should just give you all a break and pick up a pen and shut this damn machine off Because if I don't, no one will like me and I will have no one to play with. |
mellow 
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