Words

I stopped recording my life and I hate that. So here I am. I don't think anybody even reads blogs anymore but it's important to me to keep this going.

I just spent half the day going through my old journals from high school. I didn't realize I wrote so much! I was so creative, I impressed myself. However, most of it was out of anger and resentment. I was also incredibly immature, destructive and thought I was in love every other week.

I'm a sentimental person. I hold onto every scrap of paper, every note passed between Katie and myself, significant Instant Messaging conversations with ex-boyfriends and old crushes, and even the doodles all over my class notes. I believed that every single tiny event was symbolic for something larger. And I recorded it. Through words, pictures and songs. At the time, I had a big draw I stuffed everything in. If something was bothering me, I took it off my mind by putting it on paper and stuffing it in that draw. Now I have a shopping bag, decorated in pictures that represented me for a high school assignment, that's falling apart under the weight of four to fives years of ideas and thoughts.

Well, apparently it's only holding the weight of three to four years. I seem to missing one of my journals. A whole year's worth of memories and growth. Gone. The journal was from seven years ago. Who can remember that far back? That's why I put it on paper in the first place. And now I don't have it.

I wanted something from back then. Some words that I had written. So I signed into Myspace for the first time in years. I thought maybe I'd have some conversations in my messages. But no. Myspace did some updates and deleted them.
So I went to my old email. But Yahoo said the email had become inactive and therefore I couldn't log in. My emails were gone. At this moment I am trying to track down my old live journal account. However, I'm sure I deleted it (after I printed it, of course... which are now the missing pages). I thought the internet was supposed to be forever!

All those words...

I really don't know where I'm going with this. I think I still believe that every single tiny event is symbolic for something larger. And maybe on some level, I know that statement lacks truth. Maybe. But I've found that I look at life like I look at a work of fiction. There are themes, foreshadowing, character development and symbols. And why not? After all, isn't it the purpose of fiction to reveal some kind of truth of life to the readers? So I do not think it's strange that I look back on my life and read my memories as I would read a novel.

That missing journal is a missing chapter. A significant chapter. It carries a large theme of my life (motherhood, the role of women, mother and daughter relations). It carries, what I consider my first experiences of intimacy and a real connection with another person. Young love or first love, if one of those terms suits you. It carries my decision to leave NY to attend BYU.

Does it really matter? I know those events happened. The story continued. I am here now. Do I need that journal? Do I need every little thought I had over the details of those days?
I can remember the general events. I know that was the year I started sneaking out my bedroom window. It was the year that ruined my relationship with Dad... an event that has become taboo, even in my own mind. In April of that year I went snowboarding for the first time with Julia, Garek and Joybeth. And it was later that year that I changed Mom's contact information in my cellphone from "Demon Woman" to simply "Mom."

I know all of that was recorded. With more. Much, much more. But where?

...

I am a sentimental person.

So here I am. With one more question. Let's say I rewrote it. That whole year and only that year. Should I write it as historically accurate as my memories and perceptions would allow. Or should I fictionalize it?

I guess I'll see what words come out.