What I’m doing and why I’m doing it–Journaling for Mental Health: A 30-Year Journey
My sister Jenny is here. She’s going to go to Florida with us (I think I told you). She got my birthday presents, one box was filled with bad ass stuff. All “in style” kind of things. In other words, model girl things. Older sister #2 sent me 50 dollars to go shopping with. So Jenny is going to take me shopping. I’ll probably get some new clothes, couple c.d.’s, maybe a new phone. Jim and I are getting closer and closer as far as friends go. Best friend #1 asked him about me, she even told him that I wanted to kiss him! But he kept saying ‘I don’t know’ to all of her questions. Boy #10 & best friend #1 came over yesterday. In the pool, I did my impression of the Noxema commercial, when I came up out of the water my left boob came out of my bathing suit! I was mortified! But I soon overcame it. I’m feeling a little bit better about going to high school. I also think that there’s going to be a lot of interesting people and guys. Maybe even no model girl or bully #1. Friend #1 said I was in all the geeky classes. But those classes contain my kind of people. I’m not saying that my friends are geeks, but I don’t have to lie to them to fit in.
I fast forwarded quite a bit from my last January entry. This entry is among the first that starts the “Jim” era. Jim isn’t his name, but I can’t think of a good word to substitute for him. He was only my boyfriend for about a week. He wasn’t ever a crush because I didn’t really know him for very long before we became a couple. He was more than just a boy. For now, I’m calling him Jim. I was hard core obsessed with Jim Carrey back then and until I graduated high school, I was pretty hard core obsessed with this boy. I really shouldn’t have been. He only gave me enough attention to make me feel good enough about our relationship and to keep me happy. But that’s getting into spoiler alert territory. So many of the journals after this one are filled with descriptions of my interactions with him and how he made me feel. It was actually pretty unhealthy now that I look back.
This entry is just before I spent almost four weeks at my grandparent’s house in Florida. They lived on Pine Island, just off the coast of Ft. Myers and pretty close to Sanibel Island. I really wish I had written more about my time there instead of obsessing about “Jim” and my anxiety about starting high school. I still don’t even know why my parents made me spend that long of a time down there. I suspect there was some Blockbuster Swinger action going on while I was gone. I never asked and I really don’t want to know.
But one of the things that made me pick this particular entry is that line at the end. “Friend #1” is the girl who I was trying to impress in my last post where I shared the picture of my flipping the bird. I had lied to her about so many things to make myself seem cool. According to what I told her, I was as sexually active as she was despite being a virgin. For me to say that I didn’t have to lie to the people in my classes to fit in was kind of profound for me back then.
High school definitely presents an array of types of kids. Even now. I was in the honors classes. Those kids were different than the kinds of friends I hung out with around that friend I lied to. Around the time I was in the 11th grade, I let teen angst get the best of me and I couldn’t keep up the grades to stay in those honors classes. It was actually disheartening for me to not be around the people in those classes anymore. I wasn’t one of them. They were the “preps”. The popular kids. I was intimidated by them. And yet, no longer being in class with them had an effect on me. It was weird.
I’m getting way ahead of myself now. This is journal #1. There is a considerable number of other volumes just for the high school years alone. This is the point where I especially want to go back and talk to my younger self. Knowing what I know about how it turns out with “Jim” makes me want to talk sense into her. I want her to just stop obsessing over him! It was a waste of time! But also, it’s pretty interesting knowing what he does now. At some point when I’m done sharing these entries, or when people like “Jim” make their last appearance in them, I’ll do a “25 Years Later” kind of update. Wait until I share what I know now about “boyfriend #2”!
Until then…
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