I used to love to read my step-sister Erin’s diary. Compared to the banal existence I led as an eleven-year-old, her experiences as a freshman in high school were so much cooler. She had a real boyfriend, and they were serious. She wrote about their French kissing and boob groping in great detail. It was more salacious than Judy Bloom’s Wifey (which I also read in her bedroom).
The best part—besides the fact that I had to sneak under her bed to read the latest entries while she was at cheerleading practice—was that her boyfriend had written in a bunch of “Oh, baby” comments in the margins.
It was good shit.
Then one day, there was an entry about me. Specifically, how she found me annoying and dumb. I was heartbroken. I confessed to my mother that I’d read Erin’s diary and she told Erin, who took it better than expected. We sat down and she told me how she’d written the entry out of anger because I’d borrowed her sweater without asking and how we say things we don’t mean when we’re angry.
I apologized and swore I’d never do it again (wear the sweater or read the diary).
The next day, when I went to read her diary, a new one was in its place, and it was locked. I was pretty bummed. I’d been passing along the French kissing and boob grabbing juiciness to my friends and had become the unofficial smut peddler of the group. I didn’t want to lose my clout. Thankfully my step-father’s top drawer housed a cheesy collection of R-rated videos.
I have one word for you: Hardbodies. It’s a classic.
Anyway. I started my own diary/journal after Erin denied me access to hers (the nerve!). I kept at it with ridiculous religiousness, amassing about 15 journals that span ages 10-28. Yesterday, as I packed up my woman room, I found them all at the bottom of my closet. As I rifled through them, a few thoughts crossed my mind, like:
Why the fuck did I write so much?
What the hell am I going to do with all of these?
Did I have a pen stuck to my forehead for 18 years or did I actually manage to simultaneously live and write the equivalent of 50 novels?
How many observations can one person make about life in Connecticut?
For a minute I thought about burning the journals. I’ve never burned anything. I think that makes me kind of boring. Our yard is small, though, so a fire could get ugly. So could the headlines: “Woman’s past responsible for destroying her future.”
Tragic.
I thought about sitting down and reading them right then and there, but I was home with Junior—who has croup by the way, good times—so leisure reading wasn’t an option. Then I thought about making Chuck read them every night before bed so I could quiz him:
“What was I doing on July 25, 2001 at 3:52 p.m.? Dammit, Chuck! We’ve been over this! You don’t know me. How can you say you know me?”
Sigh. What does one do with 18 years of recorded fillyfoof?
Save them, my friend Sandy told me. “When our husbands die and we become roommates, we can rehash.”
Out of all the options, that one struck me as best. I don’t want to take any trips down memory lane right now, especially since the journals lack the joie de boob groping that Erin’s possessed. (Note to self: When writing journals in the future, make them steamier. Hello.) If I croak first, I’ll write it into my will that Chuck has to read them to his new wife.
Myeas. Mwahahaha. Instead of The Notebook, it’ll be Mrs. Mullet’s Many Notebooks. Starring Eva Mendes as me and Survivorman as Chuck (really, he’s Chuck’s doppleganger), Junior and Diddlydoo.
What about you? Do you have a journal(s)? When did you start? Do you fondly reread them or have they grown cobwebs? And really, does it get any better than Hardbodies*?
*Yes.
