So I really wanted to post one of those ‘end of year recap’ blog posts. I actually wrote most of it. It had some highlights (my blog went viral! I said the word ‘fuck’ a lot!) and some lowlights (I’ve been kind of depressed lately! I said the word ‘fuck’ a lot!)
And I mean, it wasn’t great writing, but it wasn’t totally tragic. It just turned out to be WAY less interesting than discovering my childhood diaries in a box in my basement.
The diary from January 1994 is the one featuring the creepy child lost in prayer while wearing an elegant nightgown. January 1997 is the one featuring lady cat with headphones (who also owns a dog and bunny slippers which makes me have some questions about the logic of this particular cartoon universe. Are those slippers made out of real bunnies?) I say “January” because in both instances, I began each diary around January 1st and lost interest somewhere around January 5th.
In January 1994 I was eight years old, and that praying child diary is AWESOME. The highlights:
-A rant about my best friend Deirdre being a bitch in some vague and undefined way (“I think both of us want to call each other and make up, but none of us are really giving in. When I called her, she seemed happy I called.”)
-A paragraph about a boy in my class who had a crush on me and how SUPER WIERD (sic) that is (“I wonder if he was watching Beauty and the Best very carefully. You know, the part where Gaston proposes to Belle and she refuses him. Would he be crushed if I decided I didn’t love him???!? […] I have been reading Luann VERY carefully.”)
Actually, props to eight-year-old me for identifying with the part of “Beauty and the Beast” where Belle was like, you’re an asshole, GTFO.
Come to think of it, that explains a lot.
As does my source material for romantic advice.
The rest of the diary is just my unfinished short story collection, which apparently I wrote while reading a lot of gothic Victorian novels, because it’s kind of the only thing that explains “His real name was Sir Clarence De Mois, but everyone called him The Reaper because was so terrible. Alas! Poor Cecily!”
Moving on. By 1997, at the wise age of eleven, I had outgrown such childish thoughts. A paragon of emotional maturity. Wise beyond my years, you might say.
Actually, here’s the full text of that last page:
“I had the most wonderful, lazy day. It was great. I lounged around and read cartoons and other books.
I hate Random Acts of Kindness!!!!!”
Lest you mistake my childhood for anything truly traumatic, sample sentences also include “Today I cleaned my trapper-keeper,” “Why don’t my parents have good taste in music? No Phantom of the Opera allowed in the house anymore???!” “Well, I really need graph paper,” and “Basically a regular, boring day.”
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So here’s the thing. I really, really want to wrap all of this into a tidy package for you all. Something that sums up neatly the differences between childhood and adulthood, a list of profound lessons gleaned from these diaries that will serve us all well as we wrap up 2013 and venture into the new year. I want to write something brimming with universal truths, something humorous and then unexpectedly heartfelt, that appeals to all my readers, capturing a triumphant human spirit, giving us some small ray of hope in these dark winter days.
I can’t. There’s really not much to take from this hilarious pile of childhood angst other than “I guess we were all kind of dicks when we were kids,” or “wow, fuck you for reminding me how old you were in 1997.”
But I’m glad you went there with me anyways.
Happy new year. I’ll see you all in 2014.
And for the record: While I still sometimes totally hate my mom, my dad, my life, and my fifth-grade math teacher, I’ve come around somewhat on random acts of kindness. Which is how I think of it, every time one of you reads this, comments, or shares. It truly means a lot to me, and I read every one of your comments. Thank you, so much, from the bottom of my heart.
(But basketball practices are still disgusting. Ew.)
IMPORTANT UPDATE: OMG OMG OMG OMG.
So one of my longtime readers, Miceala, read in one of my previous posts that I had accidentally shattered the coffee mug on my desk that holds all my pens. So she sent me one to replace it. AND IT IS INCREDIBLE.
Ok. Ok. I get it. Hear that, tiny childhood Katherine? Random Acts of Kindness are amazing and beautiful and I’m glad they exist and the world seems like a much better place right now. (And there ain’t no WAY I’m putting pens in this mug. I’m gonna sip coffee from this thing every day and think, that’s right, art harder, motherfucker).