No I haven't just realised "s*** I'm old" yes I am 33 but to be honest I rarely feel that old and I don't think I look that old either, last month I got asked for ID at a club which was hilarious...anyway...
Ten years ago when I left the parental home for good; to set up my first proper grown up house I did something absolutely stupid which I have regretted ever since (some of you may point out that buying the house with the 'then boyfriend' was also a mistake but we're not covering that topic right now...). In one rash, impulsive, not thinking properly gesture whilst clearing out my teenage bedroom I decided to throw away all my diaries, letters and autograph books. Yes, just like that over ten years of diary keeping, the keepsake book from my last day at secondary school, letters exchanged between my Sister and I when she went to University and a lockable diary t my teenage best friend, Tanya, and I took it in turns to keep.
What on earth possessed me? I think that at the time I was feeling that I was starting a new phase in my life, perhaps the first significant phase of my adult life and that in order to do that I needed to exorcise myself of the past, maybe on re-reading all these documents I had seemed so naive and childish that at the time I was embarrassed by it all and decided to consign them to the rubbish bin. Maybe I thought that in the new home shared with my boyfriend he would find them and read them and mock me incessantly about them. I really don't know what possessed me that day but I have spent the last few years regretting this big time.
I read a brilliant book a few years back called 'My big fat mad teenage diary' which is a non fiction work by Rae Earl and I think this bought on the first wave of mourning for these annals that I'll never be able to retrieve. Then last summer my friend Sophie and I had an hilarious evening whilst she read aloud letters her brother had sent her whilst he was at University, cue another bout of mourning. On holiday last year I read another book 'Cringe' which was a compilation of teenage diaries and letters. Lately on Radio Six Andrew Collins and Richard Herring have been reading out on air their teenage diaries which is Comedy Gold.
And all my memories are gone forever... the first diary I think was started in July 1988 just before I left junior school and I kept my diary up, albeit sporadically in later years, until Christmas 1998. Ten years of embarrassing crushes, holidays, family experiences, fashion mistakes, friends, death, pets, emotions, hormones, periods,the youth club disco, getting pissed, getting pissed off, the boyfriends, sex, being in love, not being in love, exams, drinks, drugs,school, college, University, music, books I read, films I saw, part time jobs... the whole bloody lot gone. All those rites of passage documented at length. I am genuinely pulling a sad face as I type this as I would have loved to reproduced them for your delectation here... but I can't. Jesus what a twat I am.
Following on from a somewhat hedonistic period in my teens I also became quite depressed, resisting the anti-depressants I just soldiered on and occasionally spoke to a counsellor at Sixth Form. But also there was my diary, it was my ally, my confidante, my therapy if you like. I poured out whatever strange and mixed emotions I was experiencing at the time.
I can still picture some of the diaries. I had a few of the lockable types but mostly they were hardbacked notebooks from good old WHSmith, patterned with something trendy or garish. I seem to think the first diary was also written in red biro, something my 33 year old self would take definite issue with. Another was written sometimes in a bizarre secret code just incase my Sister read it (I used to read hers lol!).
Fortunately I am blessed with a very good memory, elephantine some might say, well at least I am now. But what about when I'm in my 70s? I can still vividly recall a lot of my 'first times': First time I flew (to Menorca, was absolutely terrified), first kiss (I was a late starter at 16, but scandal...he was 24!), first time of being drunk (predictably it was cider), first cigarette (stolen from the staff room of my Saturday job, I was suitably underwhelmed by the whole thing), first record (Like A Virgin album, didn't even know what a virgin was)...
Since I drafted this post earlier the more I try and analyse what rationale was behind chucking the whole lot away I think that perhaps I did think that a new and mature and exciting phase had begun in my life and what did I need to dwell on the past for? also, I realise now I was extremely unhappy with myself with incredibly low self esteem so maybe I didn't want to be reminded of my younger self who had even more issues? hmmm. I'll never know.
I don't keep a diary anymore, I just can't... Regrets? I've had a few...
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