In Which I Feel Nostalgic
I’ve got something on the lighter side this time, folks. Just for a change.
Last night, my brother and I were on the phone and he asked if I remembered someone from high school. I was unsure, so I went in search of my yearbook. Sadly, my yearbooks have been… misplaced. Happily, I came across my journal from 1997-1999, so my journal from when I was 16 on.
I started to read, and oh my goodness. Some things were beyond hilarious. Some things were surprising. (For example, I had a better vocabulary and was more boy-crazy than I seem to remember.) Other things were kind of sweet, like the amount of spiritual stuff I wrote down-looking back, I don’t remember feeling particularly spiritual, but apparently I was to my seventeen-year-old self.
What I want to focus on, though, is the funny stuff. Here it is. You’re welcome.
March 10, 1997
“Not too much happened today.” [I then proceeded to write for the next two pages.]
March 29, 1997
“Liana [my best friend] will be gone through Wednesday in Medford-how can I survive without her? *SOB!*” [Oh, the drama!]
April 1, 1997
“Guys are just mental…”
April 10, 1997
“It’s late; Jeanette [my sister]’s obnoxious.”
June 2, 1997
[After a long journal entry detailing an excursion to the mall with my friends, wherein I purchased sunglasses and a toy turtle] “Timothy McVeigh has been sentenced in the Oklahoma City bombing case.” [What the…? The entry ends there. Nothing else. Just that bland topical tidbit. Not even his actual sentence. I guess it was something I was thinking about?]
June 7, 1997
[Background: I’d driven the family station wagon into a ditch and managed to take out two mailboxes while I was at it.] “When Grandpa Nylund heard my story, he laughed and told me he once took out 6 paper boxes at once! I asked him how, and he said, ‘’Cause I aimed for ‘em!’”
July 16, 1997
Dad took my brother and me backpacking, where this little chestnut was recorded: “The mosquitoes are terrible! I slathered bug repellant all over me, but they keep coming! See? There you go!” [Just after the word “see” I had squished a mosquito between the pages. Hey, I was a classy seventeen-year-old.]
September 24, 1997
“On my way to 5th period (AP English) Ben Mabbot asked me to homecoming. I was so startled, I told him I’d think about it. 5 minutes later I realized that I should have just said yes.” [I felt like a moron. And I did eventually say yes, but not until after I awkwardly realized that what I’d done made it seem like I was weighing my options. Oops.]
October 12, 1997
“Last night was Homecoming. It was fun. Actually, it was just as I thought it would be: 3 hours of loud annoying music in the company of Ben.” [Bwahahahaha! Sorry, Ben. I know that doesn’t sound all that complimentary, but I think my seventeen-year-old self didn’t mean it harshly.]
Oh, the journal isn’t even halfway over, but I think that’s all for tonight. Why would I want to give away all of my best tidbits at once?