Dear Diary 01

The last time I remember having used or even seen my old diary was about four years ago, after my husband and I got married and found a new home. It was a new start for me; I did not feel the need to have to mark down every single event of my married life. I was on a path into a new territory, and I would remember everything. Every minute, day, and occurrence, every happy moment, probably every bad moment, too, everything would get imprinted in my memory. Or so I thought.

Years went by and I started thinking of my good old diary again. At first, I believed I had misplaced it in one of the moving boxes and since there were still a few that have not been emptied even after all this time, I believed it still might be there. Of course the old memories did not escape me, but I wanted to refresh them. I wanted to remember how my mind used to work and perceive life. I really yearned to see how much I have forgotten and how good my selective memory had become. Mike always claimed that I was an expert at remembering only what I wanted to. 

I have to admit that despite loving Mike more than I had ever loved anyone in my life, there are moments when I daydream back into the past and think of previous relationships. Later on I might dismiss those thoughts as ludicrous, but in times of dwelling, my mood is dangerously aloof and should I have an opportunity to do it all over again with one or two lovers from my past life right there and then, I probably would. 

Last week, we had decided that due to sharing our little home with three dogs and two cats, it was becoming too crowded, and we agreed to remodel the closed-in patio, which now served as a storage and dumping place and rebuild it into an additional room. We were to have a garage sale and get rid of as much junk as possible, and if lucky, make some money on the side, too.

Besides our workout equipment, which basically served as a dust collector, old clothes that were too small or too old to wear but still too dear to be discarded, some atrocious furniture, which we were simply too lazy to throw out, I had found three boxes from the time of our initial move, packed to the brim with books. 

I dug into the boxes with great pleasure, as I had hoped to find books that I might want to re-read, and probably some that were never even cracked open, bought on one of my impulsive binges and stored for the later times when I would have more time to devote to them.

As I was emptying the last of the boxes containing old sci-fi novels, which I seriously suspected would be the first ones to be designated as items for sale the following weekend, to my great amazement, I saw my old diary, it’s cover faded and with traces of coffee stains, laying on the bottom, dusty and alone. My heart jumped with excitement and I eagerly took it out of its prolonged imprisonment, pressing it to my chest and closing my eyes in silent gratitude. It had an odd smell of staleness, the texture of its cover familiar to my fingers. 

I had kept a meticulous diary when it was first given to me, after which it lay discarded for years. It had been a gift from my mother, who brought it from her honeymoon in Italy after she married my step dad George. It was a combination of an address book, diary and a notebook, the size of a big paperback and just as thick, and if I was to use it as a chronicle of my young life, I could have probably squeezed in a few years, because as a teenager I had allowed myself very little fun and didn’t date at all. 

The cover of the book was a mixture of soft pastels; peach and pink running into pistachio green and baby blue. In the middle of the cover was an upright oval circle with the cartoon picture of Holly Hobbie, who at the time was the rave among young girls, just as Pokemon might be for kids today, or Jessica Simpson for the teenagers. 

On my book, Holly is wearing a big blue sunbonnet and a patchwork pinafore, happily strolling through the meadow with a wicker basket hanging over her arm filled with what looked like small field flowers. The sweet innocence of the girl had reminded me of my early years with heavy nostalgia. The image itself made me miss my school friends, most of who still live in a small town thousands of miles away from Chicago where I had moved when I began college never to return. It made me miss my mom, who had since remarried for the third time, my ex-step dad George and his quiet kindness, my sisters Hope and Alison, who were always in my hair and on my case, feeling that the simple fact of being older than me allowed them to do so.

As I started college, I again made use of my diary, carefully documenting all my escapades, mainly with guys, turning my innocent little diary into an erotic confessionary, always terrified that a pair of uninvited eyes might take a peek. 

I placed the book in my lap and opened it, immediately cringing in embarrassment. Over twenty years ago when I was fourteen, I had a huge crush on Rick Springfield, and his image was the first I saw. Actually, it must have been some thirty images of him, plastered all over the first two pages. Black and white pictures from the newspapers, colored ones from the magazines, overlapping in a shabby-chic array, which is very tiresome to the eye. Rick Springfield wearing a red leather jacket, Rick in a black T-shirt, Rick at a concert, caught in midair, kicking his legs to one side, his head flung back, clutching on a guitar, his long hair waving wildly, Rick on a motorcycle, Rick in doctor’s scrubs from the General Hospital, young Rick, older Rick, Rick wearing glasses, Rick wearing shades… Rick, Rick, Rick.

“Yuck!” I giggled. What was I thinking to be this obsessed by somebody who was not a reality, at least not to me? No wonder I never dated properly!

I turned the page only to find more Rick, now becoming seriously annoyed over my own stupidity. 

“Glad I’m over that one!” I chuckled, finally reaching the double page with no Rick’s pictures on it. Instead, the left side held two yearly calendars, 1981 and 1982, the opposite continued with calendars of 83 and 84, each one occupying half a page. There were no spaces for writing, just numbers; for each year, three months in a row, four in a column, Saturdays and Sundays in grey, weekdays in black and holidays in red. Many of the festive days I didn’t recognize and it dawned on me that they must have been Italian, therefore unfamiliar. 

In May, June and July of 1981 I appeared to have been very conscientious, carefully circling five or six days in a row of each month with a red pen, obviously the days of my periods. After July however, there was no more markings until September of 1983, and they continued for another four months after which seizing altogether. I have never been consistent and disciplined with anything, even the tracking of my own periods. That is why I had so many scares later in life when I thought I was in my “safe” days and had had unprotected sex, only to sweat a number of sleepless nights, praying to God in whom I didn’t believe anyway, promising I’d do anything, just please, please, PLEASE, don’t let me be pregnant. The thought that I might be chancing something worse than pregnancy never occurred to me in those days.