Dear Diary

NPR is collecting diary entries for their Flickr project "The Hidden Lives of Girls." I love this idea (and not just because I thought of doing a similar project, but was beaten to the punchline). I've kept a diary regularly since I was 11, and sporadically before then (my older brother would steal my plastic diary with the generic lock-and-key that could be opened with any narrow object, and read it aloud to the boy-next-door. So I waited to keep a diary regularly until I was a little older before all my secrets like "Nick is so cut" [sic] were revealed).

Being young and female is a strange experience when old men have all the power, or at least most of it still. My past entries vary in topic from day-to-day life, personal milestones, theology, political commentary, my appearance, crushes on boys, and mostly just how I felt. Trust me, I felt a lot of emotions deeply.

So I pulled out a couple of old diaries tonight to read a few snippets. It's so strange how I can read about an event that I otherwise would have forgotten about entirely. Like, one New Year's Eve a group of girls and I decided to buy cupcakes so we could pretend to kiss the boys at midnight, but at the last second reneged and shoved the cupcakes in their faces. Even back then I was toting the line of girl power and boy liking.

And it is with great self-deprecating humor, I give you an entry from October 5, 2000; age 15. Let me preface with the fact that a lot of diary entries from 2000ish had some link to pop culture. Like, in one entry I wished Ava Phillipe a happy birthday (you know, in case Reese or Ryan were reading), or in another I wrote I was eating Cap'n Crunch and watching a show on Hollywood homes instead of doing my geometry homework. Or just the sheer number of entries signed with "Timberlake" after my name. In this particular entry, I had been watching a "Friends" episode with Monica and Chandler getting engaged. That spawned my thoughts on marriage...



Yeah, I know. Reading some of these young teen diaries make me ask out loud, "Who IS this person?!" My how a decade can change a person. Oh, and yes, my hand is covering the last line where I write a boy's full name, then "I LOVE YOU!" Yikes.