Teenage Kicks

I stopped keeping a personal diary about a year ago. I’d kept it on and off since I was about 13 but I’d reached the stage where reading old entries was too hard. There was just too much typically teenage, whinging, badly written angst.

I mean, I used to copy Fiona Apple lyrics into my journal to signify my adolescent PAIN. There is no excuse for that. In fact, that might just be the single most embarrassing thing I’ve ever confessed to. “Never is a promise that you can’t afford to lie” – JESUS, I thought that was deep.

There were also three years worth of entries where I wrote very erratically but, when I did write, it was all about my, now ex, boyfriend – He Who Shall Not Be Named. Reading back on those entries now is the literary equivalent of being strapped in a steel chair in a dark room and being forced to listen to Vanessa Amorosi songs on repeat for the rest of my natural life. Frankly, there isn’t a Fiona Apple lyric dark enough to signify that kind of pain.

So, I stopped keeping a diary and started blogging which is way more fun because I actually think about what I write in terms of being accountable. I think about the stuff that I write and how it will read back in a few months time which stops me, most of the time, from writing something which will cripple me with embarrassment in the not so distant future.

For example, when I was 13 I wrote word for word, in my oh so cool Naf Naf diary, the following:

I would like to marry Robbie Williams or Mark Owen when I grow up. Well if I ever decide to get married I will marry one of them. But I don’t think I want to get married or have kids until I’m much older. Maybe when I’m about 24 I will start thinking about that. That’s probably a good age. I will have done plenty of stuff by then.

When I read that entry on the weekend I freaked out because I remember that time when 24 seemed so grown up and mature.

Today is my birthday. I am 24. HOLY CRAP.

Comments

[Tom]

Fiona Apple is deep! On a more serious note, I hope there weren't any death threats to my small frail pre-pubescent from... but if there were send them to me so that I can laugh.