I don't blog. I don't journal. I don't write down anything that I wouldn't say aloud.
Putting private thoughts in writing, allowing someone to read my heart on paper, is a dangerous game. I've always thought it better to just keep my secret thoughts and feelings tucked away inside where they're safe from the judgment of others.
I know I'd love to find out that my mom had written a journal at any time during her life. I know I would laugh and cry with her - and I'd never judge her no matter what she wrote.
I wish I could do it for my children - and stick with it - but I can't, and so I don't.
Well, actually, that's not entirely true. Sometimes I go through a rough patch in my life and I journal for a day or two to help me through it. When I found out I was pregnant I would usually start a journal, talking to the baby, filling him/her in on my life and my thoughts, only to leave 6 full pages in an otherwise empty book. I'd be more ashamed to let them see their journal than to have them believe it was never written. It's so embarrassing the way I would start out with such zeal and promise, then miss a day or two, or twelve, and get tired trying to catch up.
When I was little - around age 10 - I kept a diary pretty faithfully for about 2 years. During that time I had a merciless crush on a boy from my church who was a couple of years older. I had perfect attendance thanks to him, and every week I wrote in my diary about each mean little thing he did to me as if it were a blessing. It was your typical "ponytail in the inkwell" kind of behavior, and I never gave up hope that the grownups were right: He treated me that way because he liked me, too. (It's no wonder some of us are too tolerant when we're treated badly in adult relationships!)
He and I spent our tween years together in a tiny church of mostly elderly couples and a small handful of kids our age. When I was about 12 (and he 14), the adults asked us to teach a VBS class together. For this one perfect week we got along beautifully. We had to. Our young students knew that we were not prepared to teach and they were absolutely HORRIBLE! He and I teamed up, a formidable alliance, to conquer the brats and feed them their daily lesson. When our class time was over, we'd go outside to decompress. That's where he taught me to throw (and catch) a baseball.
Much to my dismay, this war that we survived together did not cause our love to blossom. Eventually I stopped going to that church and our late-night "Chase around the Tombstones" during Revival and Fifth Sunday Night Supper became a distant memory, and the boy I had crushed on so hard was almost forgotten.
That is, until we ended up attending the same high school several years later.
I was a freshman and he was a junior. No one ever had a clue that he and I had past. We never spoke a single word to each other in the two years that we roamed the same halls. In fact, we were so silent, someone should have been suspicious of that - if anyone had bothered to notice.
You see, while I had no problem recognizing this boy from the outside, he had become someone completely unrecognizable on the inside. He had become a player - so much so that I should submit his yearbook photo to Urban Dictionary for display next to the definition.
Player: A male who is skilled at manipulating ("playing") others, and especially at seducing women by pretending to care about them ... Possibly derived from the phrases "play him for a fool", or "play him like a violin"...
Yes, my sweet "Brandon" spent his high school years un-apologetically dating 3 or 4 girls at the same time on a regular basis, almost daring them to discover it. One time, two of the girls he dated were cousins - He was especially proud of himself for this accomplishment. He used a lot of girls and broke a lot of hearts, but he never seemed to notice.
As for me, I hated how he made me feel inside: Disappointed in who he had become, disgusted by what he was doing, and annoyed by the butterflies that still fluttered inside me every time I passed him (silently) in the hallways.
Being a little older, he graduated before me, and I was glad to finally have peace at school. I was blessed to have plenty of attention from the opposite sex, but I never could quite figure out why he hadn't tried to add me to his list of conquests. Of course, I assured myself that even if he had tried, I'd never have given him the time of day.
Wouldn't you know it? One fateful night, I was given an opportunity to prove it, and I failed.
First let me state for the record, that when I was a teenager, I was not allowed to go out. For some reason my mom never let me go anywhere. It became a not-so-funny joke that she would usually say, "No" before I ever finished asking a question. I wasn't her first daughter, or her last. I have no idea why she only let me out of the house a handful of times, but I can assure you, I made the most of those times.
One of those times, I had been given permission to go to a birthday/slumber party for a girl whom I'd recently met through a mutual friend. My mom knew her mother pretty well (so she thought) so she let me go, almost before I even asked. I had no idea what was in store for the night, but I wasn't complaining that we didn't see that girl's house until well after 3am.
It was a long time ago. Most of the details are foggy. I know I had just had a fight with my long-time boyfriend and we were on hiatus. My mom didn't like him at all, and that probably played a role in her letting me get out and explore a little, hoping I'd find a better distraction. As for me, I went out with my girlfriends looking for assurance that I was even half as cute as I thought I was.
There was no cake or candles or presents, but there was a party - and not at "Connie's" house. She had made arrangements to take us all to a real blow-out! The obnoxious "parents-are-out-of-town" kind of party which I had never seen before.
The party was great fun - a once in a lifetime for me. Loud music, lots of food - and drinks - and plenty of flirtatious boys I'd never met. One particular guy who was quite a bit older (7 yrs) and had a very nice car (Oh, the things that matter when you're 16!) showed me a good bit of attention. Some time after midnight, though, he bid me a fond farewell (took my number ... and by the way, he DID call.) and left.
I nibbled on some watermelon and sang along with some fun tunes while I waited for the other girls to get bored/tired/ready to go.
Then "he" showed up.
The pest from my past who would never leave my head alone.
Brandon.
He joined me at the watermelon basket and asked me about the guy who had just left. I told him we'd just met. He said he was too old for me, and he began to joke about the troubles of being a young girl with an old man. We talked and laughed and enjoyed each other for the first time ever. The whole time I was thinking, "I can't believe this is really happening! I must be dreaming! No, I've been dreaming of this for years, THIS is real!"
He was so genuine and entertaining - and so into me! It seemed like he had really grown up, finally, and I felt it really was a dream come true.
He told me I looked amazing, but that it was nothing new. He said he had always liked me back in the day and that his aloofness was all an act to keep his mom happy. He said after all of her man troubles, she would have freaked out if she thought he had a girlfriend at that young age and so he had to pretend not to like me.
I didn't actually really buy that whole story, but the fact that he might even be lying to impress me was enough. So what if he didn't like me when I was 10? He clearly liked me at 16, and NOW is all that matters NOW, right? After all, I'd grown up a bit myself.
I was delighted - Swept away by the music, the laughter, the culmination of my past crush, and yeah, probably whatever that watermelon had been soaking in. When he kissed me that first time, I am pretty sure my heart (or something inside me) exploded.
We made out like silly teenagers at a party at 2am, and then ... we went our separate ways.
And I was actually surprised, and devastated, when he didn't call.
I found out through the grapevine a few days later that the night of the party was his last night in town before joining the army. Turns out, I was his final fling, and then he was gone.
"Crushed" again, but in a different sense this time.
I can't even begin to list the range of emotions that I experienced. How humiliating!!! He was so smooth and convincing!! I had been completely suckered! I had no one to talk to about it because I still hadn't told anyone the whole story. Most everyone around me only knew that I'd had my heart broken by my boyfriend earlier that night. No one knew the turmoil I was in as a result of my rebound fling with my first crush. I had to cope alone on this one.
I tried to read my diaries again, to complete the picture and close that chapter, but I felt like such a fool even as I read the innocent words of my 10 year-old self. Looking back at my sweet girlish ideals, I was angry and embarrassed; confused, furious.
So I put on my big girl panties, and I burned my diaries.
Yep. I took them outside, looking at them as if they were Brandon himself. They glared back at me, filled with all their infatuation and excitement and the pure pleasure I took in the tiniest things (sitting beside him at the movies on a Sunday School class outing) and I cried my pathetic heart out as I lit them on fire. It was the ultimate revenge.
And that is why I don't have any diaries from my childhood :)
It might be why I never really wrote much else.
Who knows, maybe I've finally grown up enough to try again. Maybe this Blog will work for me. I'll change some names along the way so my stories won't cause issues for anyone today. After all, even "Brandon" has re-surfaced several times over the years, and I suspect he wouldn't want his wife to know just how often, or how recently (although I have no doubt he could talk his way out of it if she found out). He's still a player, but not with my heart. I'm glad he came back around long enough for that piece of my past to heal. We were able to become friends, and that works for me.
The fact that my first Blog seemed to be about him does not nearly make him the most important part of my past. The truth is, this story is more about why I don't keep a diary any more, rather than who was the main character in my old writings. At least that's what I tell myself.
Rehashing this painful series of events has really made me think. I hope I get to know my daughter just a little better than my mom knew me. I want to be a safe place where she can bury her broken heart, even if I detest the person who gave it to her (which I obviously would!) I know I can't protect her from the inevitable, but I desperately want to be there to cry with her when it happens.
And some day, when I have left this earth, I hope she discovers my blog and cherishes the words shared from my heart, just as I would cherish my mother's if there were any.
That's what it's all about.
Yeah, I think I can do this.
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