25 years: a retrospective (part 4)

26 May 1983

My hair looks like a boy hair cut! Mommy curl ironed it a little though. It still looks like a boy hair cut. My birthday’s soon here!! I’m getting an ODIE DOLL!!!!!!!!

8 November 1984

I hate Ma! She’s making me go get a haircut in 15 minutes. At that dumb beauty salon. I’m really crying because I don’t wanna go. She says she’ll pay me a dollar and she wants the nicest lady to work on me. She treats me like a baby. I’ll have to not speak to her. I bumped my head on the bars. It hurts my head, stomach, all hurt.

4 June 1985

Tomorrow is the last day of school. Amy T. is my BEST friend. I brought in cupcakes today. Everyone sang to me. It’s my birthday! I have the BEST class: everyone was signing autograph books. I got everyone’s name but 6 people. I’ll get them tomorrow. I got Manny’s and Matt’s. Oh boy! I got a Care Bear! from Maggie. Cheer Bear. He’s cute. Amy gave me an Anastasia book as another present. At exactly 9:10 PM tonight I’ll be 11!

Oh boy!

30 March 1986

Today is Easter and was fun. First, I got a good Easter basket and in it was a J pin. Then we went to the Pancake House to eat breakfast. I had eggs, cereal, etc. Kris and I fought when we went home but then I rode my bike and when I got back, the whole family went on a bike ride. Kris and I exchanged bikes then Daddy tried to fix hers because it’s broken. While he did that we wrote all over the house in chalk. Then we went to Nanny’s and ate a delicious meal and I watched MTV. Since it was hot out, I went outside barefoot many times, it felt good on my toes, and found a golf ball! Kris and I toured the houses across the street and found a huge dirt and stone mountain, climbed it, and found a poorer housing development. That was neat too.

11 March 1987

Today D. acted cold towards me. She said stuff like I’m a copycat, and I’m stupid and that she wasn’t getting a Hershey pass anymore. I don’t know if that’s true or not. I hope she changes her mind. Punky said that she thought D. and Angie were best friends. That’s probably true. I mean, if we were best friends, she’d write me notes, act NICE, call me, say “hi” in the halls, and sit with me at lunch. None of those things happen. I’m so confused about friends and all. I wish I were REAL popular. That’s why I’m not sure if I’ll have a birthday party. Because I have hardly any friends. It’s just not fair! I also wish that I’d find a new best friend. That would show her I’m no loser.

27 May 1988

God, I am mad. Kris just said that I looked like I’m doing coke just because I’m tired and my nose is red. Well let me tell you—I am NOT. I’m tired because of Olympic Day and gym class today. My nose is red because it got sunburned yesterday. I told her this, but I don’t think she believed me. That’s the second person who thinks I’m using drugs. Mom told me a few days ago at Nanny’s that she thought I was on drugs in the past. Now I see why people who are accused get so mad at school. Don’t they know I would never use drugs? It’s true! In my book (and please don’t think I sound like a commercial) drugs are stupid. The only reason I act(ed) the way I do because I was, and still am, going through a hard period in my life. And I wouldn’t classify it as DRUGS, but ADOLESCENCE.

4 June 1989

Today’s my birthday, but it doesn’t feel like it, and I’m not yet fifteen. Everyone’s at Baccalaureate. I’m supposed to be studying for my A.M. final; however, I left my book in my locker and the school doors are locked, so I can’t. Antoinette said you need to use common sense for it. Nan and Papa are coming over for cake tonight, which looks brilliant with its British flag on it. … I was reading back over last year’s diary, with my hang ups and struggles. How I’ve changed! What will I be like a year from now? So much has happened…yet so little remains. Yesterday existed, today is here, and tomorrow is an illusion, an image, a dream. In a flick of a moment it could all change, and that’s what frightens me.

4 June 1990

One year later, it’s my birthday. In four minutes (no, make that three) I’ll be 16. I’m writing to you because one year ago I wrote about my feelings of the times, and wondered where I’d be in one year. Well, here I am, a true survivor.

It’s 9:10. I’m 16. Oh God, is that old. Now I closed my eyes and it’s 9:11. It’s official. I’m 16.

One year ago, I closed my eyes to my parents’ rage, praying for hope, and now they’re divorced. I speculated on my freshman year, now I’m reaching towards my junior. Life works in funny ways. I wonder where I’ll be one year from now, when I’m almost a senior.

19 April 1991

I wanted to kill them all this afternoon. I wanted to scream and kill and run, but I don’t think I have enough strength to do that, do I? I don’t have enough strength to do much of anything, except maybe lie down and die. I’m too much of a wimp to do even that. They’re probably all downstairs talking about me now. Oh God. Oh God! Oh God! Why must it be like this? Why must I bleed inside as I do? It’s always there…this monster of utter and pure and religious darkness…

10 May 1992

Have we drifted apart because we have nothing in common anymore? Did we ever? Maybe I’m a little too weird and off-the-wall for them. Maybe I threaten the safety of their comfortable little world. Maybe I’m just a fucking nut who is mega-crazy for thinking that anyone could possibly want to spend any time with me. Of course that’s got to be it. Others see the insanity in me that I only suspect exists. They’ve known longer than me that I’m a useless, hopeless, revolting, pathetic little shit who’s unfortunately stuck on the bottom of their shoes. They keep trying to wipe me off on the pavement, but I just won’t go. If I did go, would they notice? Would they mind? Would they keep on walking or stop to laugh at me smeared on the ground? Sometimes, when I think of dying, it’s a beautiful thought. The word “suicide” is entwined with flowers and happiness and light. I don’t want to live to be 18. I don’t want to work this summer, or go on senior week, or go off to college, or grow up to be stuck in some shit-town, working at a menial job and paying off college loans for the rest of my life. I only want to curl up and die in secrecy…to go away for awhile. To never have to dream this sour dream of life again. Its odor is choking me. I’d rather die by my own hand than by life’s, especially when I continuously feel as if I’m losing my mind. My brain has huge holes in it, I’m constantly plagued by anxiety, I can’t even bloody spell anymore! … Am I supposed to scavenge up the tattered shreds of my life and build something with it? Or am I supposed to throw them in the ocean and cover myself with the wet sand of darkness, betrayal, lies, and hatred, until I’m totally buried, and no one can see me anymore? I wish God, if there is one, would let me know. Why the hell does s(he) keep me hanging on like this—lonely, confused, afraid. I’ve never been in an accident, I’m never sick, I’ve never even broken a bone, for Christ’s sake!

“How does it feel to never be allowed to die…?”

22 June 1993

While I was writing to you, I began to inexplicably cry. Sort of ashamed, I headed for the attic with my box of pills and razor blades. Once there, I bawled my eyes out, mumbling to myself about how I’m so sick of holding everything in. I grabbed a razor blade and made one deep (borderline vein) slash in my right wrist, which gushed endless blood. Kristen called me to dinner, and frantically I mopped up the blood and dried my tears; a bunch of Kleenex, a maxi pad, and an ace bandage covered the wound.

I am I am I am

15 December 1994

Oh god, everything’s falling apart. I’m falling apart, but that’s nothing new. I’m beginning to cry again now. Things like these inevitably lead to my lashing out at myself in self-beratement. I think that I’ll never do anything with my life, and that I’ll have to kill myself before graduation, anyway, so I may as well do it now. You can’t know how badly I need to slit my wrists as I sit here writing this.

11 September 1995

By the way…on Friday night, he and I went to Farley’s for drinks. We got hassled by three drunk townies, and afterwards we tried to steal a parking meter that lay felled in the middle of the street. We were unsuccessful, as it was quite heavy. We couldn’t even get any money out of it. So, we went to the library to do e-mail, which was kind of fun in its patheticness. After all, it was like 1 a.m. and we were in the library on a Friday night, being cybergeeks like the other losers there.

19 February 1996

Anyway…spending so much time reading about gothic things and vampires this weekend got me thinking about being gothic. On the outside, I don’t look very goth, and other goths might look down on me for that, claiming I’m not “real.” However, I feel that I’m more goth than goth poseurs who dress like it, listen to all the goth bands, etc., but do it all for image purposes. I’m just as goth as people who look and act like it, and genuinely believe in it. I once looked pretty goth…I had the dyed-black hair, the constant pale face and blood-red lips, and wore almost all black. The pale face remains, and sometimes I have the red lips and black clothes, too. It doesn’t matter how I look, though; what matters is how I feel. The true state of gothic isn’t what bands you listen to, or how bizarre you can make yourself look, but how attracted you are to the dark side. And the dark side covers a wide range of genres. I’ve been into many dark things for years…depression, insanity, suicide, death, cemeteries, horror…shallower things like the colour black, dark poems and photos and winter, and more serious things, like a fascination for the occult, Satanism (a studious interest! That’s it!) paganism and witchcraft, and the paranormal…dark, wicked sense of humour…and above all, a burning interest in the dark side of regular life. Every person and every place has a dark side. Shadows lurk under the brightest, most plastically perfect façades of people and suburbia. That’s a powerfully intriguing thing, and I think that’s what makes me gothic. I examine the dark side of everything, of myself. And if, along the way, I maintain an interst in gothic literature, The Cure, Highgate Cemetery, Elizabeth Bathory, and vampires, and I own a black velvet cape and black lipstick, then all the better. Carpe noctum, baby…

10 June 1997

When I was at one tourist mecca (which invites you to join in “The Amish Experience” in a top-of-the-line multimedia theater and laser show, even though the Amish don’t even believe in electricity or cars for chrissake—what a contradiction!), I saw a large group of elementary school students having lunch on what was obviously their class field trip. There was one adorable boy who was eating lunch all by himself on the fringes, looking sad, yet looking like he was struggling to maintain some sense of dignity at being alone while everyone else chattered and sat in groups of friends. I just wanted to cry. I felt like hugging him and exclaiming, “I understand! I, too, spent my life on the fringes of my asshole classmates’ warped little hierarchal caste system!! It will get better!” But then I thought to myself, “No, it doesn’t get better! It’s my 23rd birthday and I’m all alone today, just like I’m alone every night!!” Oh, it was too depressing for words.

4 June 1998

I turn 24 today! I’m a little apprehensive and a little hopeful. In a way, it feels right, like it did when it became 1998. 24 is an even number, so it seems harmonious. Not to mention the fact that I lost my virginity in room 24, and I now live in apartment 24. My life is rather hellish right now, but apartment 24 is a safe place. Will age 24 be a safe place? I hope so.

… What will age 24 bring? Love? A sense of peace? A fulfilling career? I’ve come quite far since my last birthday. I’ll reward myself for that and refuse to beat myself up for what I’ve failed to accomplish. As far as I’m concerned, what I’ve achieved more than makes up for what I haven’t done. And there’s always this upcoming year…

I’ll never be 23 again. I’m sliding further and further away from my teen years and the excusable follies of youth, although I’m still quite young—so very young. There is still time to burn before I must be established in life, completely and thoroughly. But what if there isn’t time? Everybody has limited time, limited chances. Wasting both time and chances is almost a sin. What if I don’t get to accomplish anything significant (to myself or others) before I run out of time and chances?

The sun is disappearing. A gray beach is a good beach.

17 June 1999

I thought it was a smart idea—it’s better to nip something before it even becomes a bud than to try and claw your way out of a depression after you’ve crashed down the hole. After we hung up, it occurred to me that maybe my misanthropy is actually the beginnings of a depression. I was startled and distressed by this. My depression generally doesn’t manifest itself in an anti-people sentiment. I mean, yeah, I guess when I’m depressed I often want to be alone, but that’s more so I can sulk and cry and feel black in peace, and not because I hate people so much I want to kill them. But this feels so different from my normal depressions, which can barely even be described. Or maybe it’s just been so long since I’ve had a true depression, I don’t even remember its little nuances. Whatever the root, I’m not happy about this. I’m terrified it will blossom into something more.

18 January 2000

I can’t believe that I’m dealing with all of this at once without cracking, or at least without slitting my wrists. I want to cry so badly, but I don’t think I can. Perhaps the Paxil and St. John’s Wort have made me immune. I think about slitting my wrists…but I honestly don’t think it would be therapeutic for me anymore. It would just hurt, and then I’d have the added aggravation of needing to hide my wrists from my coworkers and rental office workers/potential landlords.

I try telling myself, It could be worse. And I know it could be. I could be living on the streets, or unemployed, or sick. I could be dealing with death after death in my life, like poor Nina H. I am grateful for the things I have. … Slitting my wrists and writing in my journal may have hauled my exhausted, immobilized ass through depression, but they can’t find me a place to live or get me the bank loan that I need.

Yeah, occasionally those old, sweet desires for death resurface, but I really don’t want to die right now. It’s more like my desire to “just go away for a while.” I used to ingest poison partially to self-injure away my pain, and partially because I hoped that I would lapse into a coma from it. So I sort of think about doing that again, but in a way, I’m too tired to even try it. And a little too scared.

19 November 2001

… it is better to be unpopular, strong, independent, and capable of enjoying time alone than to be popular, afraid of being alone, and needy of a group dynamic. I know this, but it doesn’t make it any easier to just sit here knowing that I’m only capable of attracting freaks while A. goes on and on about how many men worship her. It makes me doubt myself and my worth as a person. It makes me depressed because it reminds me that most of the world doesn’t appreciate what I feel are my assets: my dark, witty, self-deprecating sense of humor; my love of staying home and doing low-key, intimate, sometimes wacky activities with friends rather than constantly going to crowded bars and huge parties with a wide social group; my ability to be intense/serious/introverted and yet silly/goofy/friendly; my lack of a desire to drink, smoke, and do drugs; my nonconformity; my creativity. To me, and I guess to my friends, those things make me cool. To the outside world, those things make me a geek and a waste of time—maybe even scary. Or, worse maybe those things make me unremarkable and unmemorable, which is why K. and W. and most of [that] crowd don’t remember ever meeting me after we met several times.

I need to just…I don’t know…I need to just be alone and lick my wounds and try to convince myself that I am an okay person and someday I’ll find a guy who realizes that and finds pale, geeky, cerebral, unique, creative, dark-humored former self-injurers on antidepressants sexy…

6 March 2002

Oh god I feel like I’ve got one foot in the grave of depression and another foot on solid ground. I hate this grinding dichotomy inside of me. If I’m going to be depressed, then I almost want to be solely depressed so I can deal with it and get better. I don’t like these bumpings and rumblings beneath me, barely shirring my calm surface, yet active all the same. What’s worse: staring at the placid Loch Ness, not seeing anything moving in its depths yet knowing that there’s some hideous monster down there, breathing and living and surviving completely hidden, or actually seeing the monster in all its mind-shattering glory?

Part of me wants to just stop everything and go to bed and not wake up. She doesn’t want to work, talk to anybody, clean her apartment, play with her cats, do the laundry, pay bills, and so on and so on. Everything exhausts her. Everything overwhelms her. She doesn’t want a social life. She doesn’t want a relationship. She doesn’t want to look for a new job. She doesn’t want to petsit. She doesn’t want to ever advance above her current mediocre state of working as a lowly coordinator and living in an overpriced basement apartment in the dreary suburb of Beltsville. Forget about taking it one day at a time—she can barely make it one step at a time.

Then there is the other part of me who still sings in the car during her commute, laughs uproariously at the emails sent to her by friends, giggles at the random thoughts she has when driving home from work. She wants to work on her website, find a new job, save money for a trip to Finland, find a boyfriend, learn pottery-making. She feels ashamed of her lack of a social life and wants to improve it. She’s excited to attend the two happy hours planned for this Thursday and next Friday. She’s excited that the scale claims she has lost six pounds.

What does this mean? Do I have some kind of mild multiple personality disorder? Cyclothymia? Or is it just a regular depression gestating in a womb completely reformed by my antidepressants?

23 December 2003

After that, we headed to a bar in Alexandria which has karaoke on weekends. We met up with two of Missy’s fellow Clay Aiken fanatics—Tony and his girlfriend Danielle—and had a fucking blast. Danielle sang one song and Charlie was scheduled to sing one, too, but we had to leave before his name was called because Gates got totally trashed and sick. (After drinking that bottle of wine at the Indian restaurant, she proceeded to drink—at the Rock It Grill—something like three super-strong melonballs, three Long Island iced teas, and a gin and tonic.) I guess it was around 12:30 that we left, because Gates had passed out at the table, prompting numerous people to come up to us and say, “Uh, is your friend okay?” Then she woke up and came very close to vomiting, and we had to rush her to the bathroom, past an angry line of women waiting to use the john, so she could vomit into the toilet, instead of puking on herself at the table.

Anyway, this is a fabulous place and is a haven for drunk misfits. One of them even started breakdancing while two people sang a duet from Grease. Whoever heard of breakdancing to music from Grease??? We had a great time watching those drunk misfits sing their hearts out. Two of the guys I liked best weren’t drunk at all, and they were actually talented. One looked like a meek, gay, mild-mannered businessman, and we expected him to sing a treacly love song. Hell no! He belted out an amazing rendition of Welcome to the Jungle! He sounded just like Axl Rose. And he didn’t even need to use the screen at all—he knew all the words! We were flabbergasted. It was just so surreal to hear “You know where you are? You’re in the jungle, baby, and you’re gonna diiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiie!!!” screeching out of this anonymous cardigan-wearing businessman. Another guy—who looked like a run-of-the-mill frat boy jock—also sounded just like Axl Rose when he bellowed (by heart) a fierce rendition of Paradise City.

There were these two other guys I really liked, and they were both drunk as skunks. The first slurred and gyrated his way through I Fought the Law, and at one point he fell and almost knocked over all the karaoke equipment. Yet the karaoke DJ didn’t force the guy to stop and get off the stage! He let him continue until the very end. When a bunch of people started booing him, he yelled, “Boo yourself!” and repeatedly thrust the microphone into his crotch. The second guy was middle-aged and also did a lot of crotch-grabbing. I can’t even begin to explain to you how hilarious he was as he sang this one Stone Temple Pilots song (I can’t remember the title). For some reason, every time he sang the line “when the dogs begin to smell her,” Missy and I lost control. We were laughing so hard, we were literally in pain and we couldn’t catch our breath. Occasionally one of us would gasp, “It hurts!” or “I…can’t…breathe!” I don’t think I’ve laughed that hard in years, and I am honestly astounded I didn’t pee my pants.

And there was a half-hour or so when the DJ halted the karaoke and played dance music instead, so everyone could crowd onto the tiny dance floor. A surreal moment happened when Santa Claus came into the bar, and after hugging a few people and downing a few drinks, went out into the dance floor and was dancing and grinding to Nelly’s song Hot In Here (“It’s getting hot in here / so take off all your clothes”). It was so strange to see Santa in that position!!

On the way to the bar, Gates repeatedly farted and burped in the car. Her burps were grotesque because they sounded like dry-heaves. Charlie and Missy kept saying to me, “You can’t comprehend how bad her farts smell! … Imagine sewage left outside for three days during the middle of summer. Her farts smell worse than that.” There was one time—a few months ago—when Charlie actually threw up on himself because Gates’s farts were so nasty! They literally made him puke! So, on Saturday night I was actually glad to be anosmic.

5 July 2004

I don’t plan to talk politics with Olivia. Whether she’s two or twelve, I don’t plan to secretly smuggle her into political marches and preach to her about why she needs to be pro-choice and anti-religion and anti-Fox News. It’s fucking ridiculous to do that to someone else’s child. She’s not a puppet—she’ll be entitled to make her own choices. But when she’s older, I want her to know that when it comes to ideology, she will be entitled to make her own choices. If she chooses to be conservative and bigoted … well, I won’t like it, but I’ll accept it, as long as she reaches those viewpoints on her own and isn’t just blindly copying [people]. Too many kids don’t realize that in a world of adult-inflicted rules and restrictions, they do still have freedom of thought. It’s not my goal to inflict my beliefs onto her. All I want to do, when she’s older, is to help her realize that it’s a big world out there—a world full of lots of different people, races, religions, and beliefs. Nobody is uniform and everybody needs to find an ideological belief system that feels right to them. If you don’t like somebody’s belief system, fine, complain about it all you want, but just don’t do it to that person’s face or—even worse—try to convert them to your side.

2 June 2005

Being a Lostphile, I of course am sitting here at my boarding gate at BWI sneaking glances at the other waiting passengers. If we crash on a desert island, what will these people mean to me? Who’s the Jack of this group? The Locke? The Hurley? Will I have to build a new island society with these people? Jesus, I hope not, because every other person is middle-aged and frumpy. There’s a bitchy-looking chick, curled up in on herself, chortling occasionally as she reads Bridget Jones’s Diary. Now she’s making a call on her cell phone. There’s a smiley man with Down syndrome. A granola-crunching sort of couple carrying an REI bag. A teen with casually tousled sea-tossed blonde waves, looking slightly bored and reading Us Weekly. A kinda cute, kinda geeky-looking Indian guy reading a book and listening to an iPod (like me!). An old woman in a wheelchair. A little girl in blue track pants. Are these the people who will die a fiery horrific death with me? Will we face Lostzilla together?



song heard most recently before posting:
That’s It, I Quit, I’m Moving On—Adele