What I’m doing and why I’m doing it–Journaling for Mental Health: A 30-Year Journey
The last few days has been pretty dead. Other than me and boyfriend #2 weaving in and out of friendship. I sent some of my best (writing) work to 3 contests and a magazine. That’s the first step to becoming a writer. Which I dream so much to be, that and running track, and being in ROTC at the high school next year. Oh, by the way, I’m in love! His name is crush #1. He’s on the Pirates 8th grade team. I saw him in P.E. Actually I see him in P.E. He can play basketball so well! It’s a good thing he wasn’t there today to see me humiliate myself in a feeble attempt to play basketball. But, he looks good and boyfriend #2 is good friends with him. But why would he be into me when he can have his pick of the model girls at local middle school? I don’t have a chance getting him to notice me! But I geuss I can always try. Not too hard though. For sure! Goh…he is fine! Crush #1 Forever And Always (maybe)
I decided that I’m going to devote one month to each of my journals. This month I have been slowly going through volume 1. I’m going to start skipping more to get through the most important entries before the end of it. In March, I’ll start on volume 2.
With that said, I think this entry is pretty important given that my insecurity begins to show itself. This is not unique to me as I am certain that every teenager feels insecure about themselves in some way. It makes me question though…those “model girls” at my school that I mention, did they think of themselves as “model girls”? Or were they just as insecure as I was?
Additionally, this entry starts my conversation about high school. Many of the entries after this have a great amount of detail about my anxieties and fears about high school. I feel like that’s pretty normal too. As a former teacher of middle school students, I listened to what the 8th graders often said about the next chapter of school when it got closer to the end of the school year. They were afraid too. I did my best to assuage their fears. I emphasized to them over and over that they needed to be themselves in high school. I implored them to not let anybody change them. One of the priests who had a big impact on my former school was an oblate of St. Francis de Sales. One of the most famous quotes from that saint is a good one… “Be who you are and be that well.” Thirteen year old Sarah needed someone to tell her that back then. And not just once. She needed to hear that over and over.
Over the weekend, I went looking for a picture of myself from 1996 and I found many! The one I’m sharing below is a perfect example of what I mean when I insist my students be themselves wherever they go next. In this picture, I am wearing a Charlotte Hornets jersey on a school field trip at the end of the school year. I wanted my mom to buy me one because everyone else had one. I couldn’t tell you anything about that team except for the name of the one player whose jersey I wore. I’m also doing my best to be cool and bad ass by giving the bird and not smiling. It’s all because of the friend who took the picture. She’s the one I wanted to think I was cool. She’s the one who started me smoking because I lied and told her I smoked and when she saw that I wasn’t actually inhaling (I didn’t know how), she showed me the right way and then I spent the next ten years of my life smoking the same Marlboro Lights she smoked even though I lost touch with her halfway through high school. That wasn’t me. But it was to her because I wanted to be accepted by her and so that’s who I pretended to be.
Kids are like that. It’s a phase. Child development classes taught me that in college. I wish it wasn’t and I wish I was the kid who was brave enough to just be who I was. Thirty years later and now I’m finally brave enough. Still can’t name a Charlotte Hornets player though.
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