All figured out
These beautiful day lilies are in bloom right now. I love the colors.
I was listening to the radio this morning when a feature came on about Cringe readings, or something like that. It's where people get up in a public forum and read some of their impassioned teenage, or younger, angsty writing. It was pretty funny.
So for your reading pleasure, i present a bit of writing i did while on a camping trip with my family in 1972.
Here, on this camping trip I have discovered myself. Here I Am! This is an odd thing for me to say as before I was a cynic of people who went out to discover their so called true nature. But mine has presented itself for me to inspect and I am pleased and a little embarrased to admit I like it.
I just hope that i can muster enough confidence to keep it and display me to the world. I do not like acting, but it is nessesary. Actually display is not the right word, but I use it for lack of a better one.
I think it's very cool that i figured me all out since I am only 14.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
Yes, i am cringing. But at least i have learned how to spell necessary and embarrassed.
40 comments:
I had a hunch you discovered the meaning of life at a young age. I remember the journals of self discovery; I remember burning them in the back yard.
You're a stronger person than I am. I don't think I capable of reading what I wrote during adolescence, even if it still existed. Hell, I am having a hard time reading stuff I wrote two years ago. My face is turning red just thinking about it.
That's pretty good for 14 years old! At 14 I was writing very angst type entries!!
*cringe*
That is beautiful...and wrong and hilarious and totally appropriate for 14.
Our daylilies are in bloom, too. I should take some pictures.
Luckily (?) I don't have ANY of my writing from teenager-hood (nor do I have any baby pictures, but that's another story). I have some abysmal papers from my undergrad days that I can go back to, but nothing of my adolescent angst can come back to make me cringe...
You are so awesome. I think I might even rip this idea off and go look for my Hello Kitty journal. It's nessessary.
I have some truly horrific poetry I wrote at 15 and 16. It's at the bottom of a box somewhere. I think I'll leave it there.
ms.chica, i burned all my diaries from before this time, thank god. Stuff i wrote this morning can make me cringe.
airam, oh, there were plenty of those too. The smugness of fourteen just cracked me up on this one.
flutter, it is appropriate. I was so sure that i was deep. Only to be dethroned, probably later that day.
mrs.chili, too bad! it could be very sweet and funny.
liv, oh please please please do!
janice, c'mon, i showed you mine!
I might have to find my sex ed notes taught to me by nuns at age 16. (Of course I knew what sex was, but I had never heard of "69" or "cunt" before.) No joke. They wanted us to go out in the world prepared - to not be blindsighted by words and actions that we'd never heard of before. A post for my blog to be sure at some point!
What a hoot!
The image of the daylilly became, in my mind, entwined with the image of you at 14.
The boldness of the lilly, it's confidence, it's absolute dismissal of the fact that noon is followed by night and that when the sun rises tomorrow things will never be like they are now, these things make your photo the perfect illustration for your writing.
The best part about the Cringe thing is that you know better now. You don't read it to make fun of yourself.
Okay, you do.
But at the same time, reading that stuff out loud is proof that you you have matured enough not to have to pretend that you were never young, stupid and earnest. It also means that you have maintained, or found, a great sense of humor.
Um, do I say more than I need to? I forget that this is just a comment on your blog and not an entry on mine. Now tell me, does that make me self-centered? Or is it only the last question that makes me so? I've forgotten what we were talking about. Or maybe I never even knew. Screw it, off to bed, I'll figure it out tomorrow morning when the sun rises like a fiery daylilly in the great garden of the sky.
Oh now I'm gagging. You too?
Very well-written for a 14 year old. I found some notes I had passed to my friend in high school a few years back and they were hilarious to read. They were all about the "cute boys" we had crushes on and whether we'd ever summon the courage to try using tampons etc. All of that high school crap that girls go through. I also wrote poetry but I have no idea where it ended up.
I don't think any of my early writings exist, but I still know my first poem by heart. I wrote it at age 5.
Really, though, I can embarrass myself quite enough just by reading some of the posts on my blog, and none of them is much more than a year old.
But how wonderful for you that you had it all figured out so young. It must have saved you about 20 or 30 years of adult angst.
You sounded so confident! Is that what you couldn't display? In my journals I just sound like a bitch.
On a camping trip? See, that's the key to the whole deal- you were probably sleep deprived, malnourished, dehydrated, suffering heat prostration and otherwise under duress. I goddamned hate camping, incidentally.
You were so smart!
mamap, oh, i look forward to that post. Nuns teaching sex ed! There's an oxymoron.
luckyzmom, ain't it though?
biscotto, i would say that you say just the right amount. Not gagging, i'm smiling.
schmoopie, i wish you still had the poems. It's fun to look back at that silly girl i was.
hearts, no adult angst was spared by the writing of that piece, unfortunately.
bo, i'm sire there were bitchy writings too. Just not this one. I think the confidence lasted until i had to wear that bathing suit i made.
stucco, we were poor so camping trips were what we did for vacation. I hate camping now too. Give me a decent bed and a shower!
suebob, well, i certainly thought so, at least for a moment.
You know, it wouldn't be so bad to tap into a bid of that 14 year old bravado right now. I'd love to feel like a know-it-all for a while again.
The main difference in my own writing since I was fourteen is that I have really toned down the use of exclamation points. I don't think I was aware then that there was any other way to end a sentence. It's excruciating.
You were a much calmer 14-year-old, it appears. Bless you.
So you're telling me this sort of self-conscious navel-gazing is worthy of cringe?
Sheesh, I've gotta change my style!
Wow...such personal insight from someone only 14. I'm impressed.
de, me too. Maybe i'll get it all figured out again, soon.
capacious! i had no way to underlines the one sentence three times, like it was on the real paper!!!!
mamalujo, it makes me cringe. If you are okay with it, then carry on!
joan, i see no actual insight here, just the ramblings of a 14 year old who WISHES she had some insight.
Oh I love this! I burned most of my teenage journals in a trash barrel one day, I just couldn't stand it - I was very depressed and rarely wrote anything happy and positive like this. Somehow, I did save one page - if I find it, I will post it. Of course, it is about death!
How many more times have you discovered your true self SINCE this entry, I wonder?
I can't help but wonder what it was that you found out about yourself on that camping trip.
If that were me I would have said:
"Here I am!!"
"TADA!!!"
"No, really hold the applause, you are much to kind to me"
"But really! Ta ! Da! Here I am! Isn't amazing?"
Ta Da! I can't even type! Isn't it amazing?
I remember self-realization and momentous journals like this one. And it only serves to remind how much I don't know. Look at me, age 36 and just now learning that I can make decisions without my husband's approval. I laugh at the knowledge that comes and then later shows us how much we still don't know. I wonder what I won't know in 10 more years? *snicker*
1972=bell bottoms
Mine were striped denim!
qt, i hope you do find it. This was one of my few sunny writings, the rest were all sad tales of how my life sucked. But. like you, i burned all that stuff. This happened to survive as it wasn't in a notebook.
marsha, i went off on a walk by myself so that i could have a profound experience. I found my true self. of course i did.
ttq, that sounds like you! Do you have to wear sunglasses to keep the paparazzi away?
maggie, the older i get the more i realize i don't know. Ah, the arrogance of youth. I am beginning to dance with excitement, you?
gary, i wore 13 button navy bell bottoms. I was cool, man!
You just wait until I unpack mine. I have journals from almost every grade and some through my 18-21 years. I've seriously thought of burning them. All I can think is, "What if I die? Then THIS will be all they have to remember me by?!" I don't think so.
Oddly enough, I never wrote journals when I was young, in fact I never really have until blogging.
I didn't have as much angst as some people but I'm sure it would have done me good and they'd have been a riot to read now.
My biggest issues were not having a botfriend and sticking to my diet.....well, I still have a hard time with the diet! Guess I have a boyfriend solution...he.he..
That's absolutely beautiful. I wonder how much of what we write now we'll cringe about in a few years. . .
Meno, excitement, nervousness, anticipation. You name it, its in there. :-)
That's actually not too cringe-y for 14 years old! All I can say is that I am sooooo glad I never kept a diary back then. I still write plenty of stuff nowadays that's cringe material, LOL.
THAT IS AWESOME! I love you.
WHo had time to write at 14?
tink, bring it on!
moi, no a single little pink diary book with the little lock and key? I thought that was a requirement for every young girl. Too bad, they would have provided much amusement.
popeye, i sometimes cringe at what i wrote yesterday, or this morning.
maggie, meeeee tooooo!
ortizzle, this isn't that bad because i burned all the rest. For which you are grateful. I remember one entry i wrote about how much i hated my brother and then signed it in blood.
u-u, it is pretty funny! <3
scott, well, obviously i did. At least on that damned camping trip.
I remember how "smart" I was and how I knew it all at that age. I am reminded by my 12 year old stepdaughter and I really had it forced on me by my daughter when she was going through that phase. I think its a cute and tender moment when you realized you had firgured yourself out!
I'll see you and raise you this nifty from 1974:
Tomorrow is my first day of really being a sophomore. I'm excited but scared. Not about school but about the future. I really worry myself, perhaps unessasarily but so many things can and will happen. I have a lot of things coming. Maybe not the things I planned, but things that will be just as good and that will enrich my life. I was thinking about 'frame of reference' today at the beach. Everybody has different things happen to them that make their outlook on life different than mine. If I could only remember that all the time I would understand people more.
Thanks for sharing. I often wonder why I felt so sure and confident at 14 or 17, and now everything has gone blurry and fuzzy.
"I think it's very cool that i figured me all out since I am only 14."
Yes, very cool. And funny.
heheheee. Little did you know how much more you were going to change! Thanks for sharing.
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