Journal

Obviously, this is not the best forum for me. For whatever reason, I'm pretty terrible at remembering that I even HAVE a blog, let alone posting anything on it. But here I am, ready to give it another go! I love to write, but somewhere between the feedings, washing bottles, reading bedtime stories, spending time with my husband, checking my email, doing laundry, etc etc etc, *MY* time gets shoved to the bottom of the ever-growing priority list. But then, I suppose most moms can relate...

I was cleaning out a closet the other day (another check-mark on that list!) and I found my old journal from middle school. Because this presented an opportunity not to finish the boring task at hand, I quickly decided to grab a drink, have a seat and descend back into my teenage years. Amongst the pages I found out a lot about myself - as it turns out, almost every entry involved Mountain Dew, my best friend Shay, and the name of my then-crush with HUGE hearts drawn all around it. Why was I so infatuated with this Jamie kid? I remember him, however vaguely, but more importantly I remember how absolutely taken I was with him. I wanted to dress nice for him, I wanted to sit next to him, I wanted him to ask me for a piece of gum - my life REVOLVED around his approval. Sometimes I envision him now, in his middle-twenties, with a college beer gut and a farmer's tan. Somehow, it makes me feel better.

In this journal I also lament on my social life, or lack-there-of thanks to the ackward age between not wanting to hang with your parents and not having a car to get away from your parents. We played video games, we talked about things deep and meaningful (like the plotlines of ER), we ate PopTarts, we walked up and down our street like we owned the town. I mentioned my pet gerbils, but only for two or three entries when I discovered that they were not, in fact, much fun as far as pets go. Salt and Pepper never made it to another entry until their passing 8 months later (strange, as I read back on this journal, that BOTH gerbils died in the same week...I might question my dad on this subject later...).

Anyhow, it was a fun day trip into my youth (and a fine excuse for not cleaning!). I'll have to keep it hidden away for when Lainey gets older - just so she can see that her mom DOES understand and WAS a crazy teenager at one point, too!