Thursday, June 05, 2008

Diary of an 18 year old

I was looking in the garage the other day, looking for something entirely different, and instead found my diary I had kept when I was 18. I'd been keeping diaries off and on since I was 13, but I was excited to find this particular diary. At 18, I had just moved from America to England and gotten married. I thought there'd be more about both of these huge transitions in my life. Some feelings or thoughts on the differences between cultures or how I was settling into married life. But as I read it, everything came back to me. I was so emotional at that age. Every single entry is about some strong feeling I had at the time. Jealousy, trust issues, uncertainty of the future, nervousness about work, struggles with family relationships. I went back and forth for an entire week, debating whether or not I should post some entries from this diary on this blog, but I decided not to. Everything is just too personal, too raw still and what's worse, I wasn't very articulate in any of the entries. But it did get me thinking about how much I've changed in the last 8 years. All those years ago, I was so desperate to be part of a family, a 'normal' family. I wanted everything to be perfect between me and N's family because my own family was incredibly dysfunctional. And it was a long, painful process realising that no family is perfect or normal and every family has their own levels of dysfunction. And I'm glad I have this small record of me joining N's family, even if it is a chronicle of the many mistakes I made.

Do you keep a diary? (does blogging negate the need for a diary?) What were you like at 18? Would you cringe remembering yourself at 18?

5 comments:

  1. I have always been hit or miss with it. Truthfully though, since blogging, I don't. And it's funny because I don't blog about a thing I would use my diary/journal for. Bizarre, right?

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  2. I've kept a journal since I was eight years old. Some years I write diligently, sometimes years go by. Keeping a journal is one thing that I've been proud to have done for most of my life. It's fun to go back and reread things that I wrote when I was eight, then twelve, then 18, then 26, etc. And boy, did I like to write about boys! Makes me realize that things that I thought were so important weren't very important at all. For me, blogging doesn't negate my journal. I don't blog about the same things that I journal about. My journal is personal and for me. I think I would be horrified if anybody got their hands on it!

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  3. I thought i was very mature at 18 but infact I made lots of selfish mistakes and shut a lot of people out. I cringe in some ways as I should have known better, we we live to learn right? x

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  4. i have kept diaries and journals on and off since i was about 10 and got one of those hello kitty diaries with the locks. haha! i have always had to write this stuff down. yes, i definitely cringe to think of myself at 18 -- i've read some of my old stuff back then and i think "oh such problems i had..." hahaha! boys boys boys. anyway, it's fun seeing the transition from what was important to what is important through my diaries.

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  5. I kept a journal off and on growing up and only occasionally as an adult. I never seem to stick with it. My reading journal is a different story--about the only type of journal I've been faithful about since I started it a few years ago.

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