National Poetry Month: Poems #2, #3, #4

How about some more poems for National Poetry Month? I think I'm going to shoot for 30 poems this month - we'll see! 

 I've been miserable with a combination of a possible cold and allergies this past week so these 3 seem apropos. I guess my allergies were a recurring theme in my poetry.;) 

(Also I can't decide if I want to divulge when I wrote stuff. I don't know if I want people to speculate too much about what I was writing about, so I'm thinking maybe I'll just keep the dates to myself. Leave you guessing. Maybe it will be obvious which ones are more recent, as I hope maybe I've matured a little bit since middle school. But maybe not. Hahaha). 

Hope you enjoy these! 

Self-Esteem During Allergy Season 

By Kristen 

it's more than make-up
and hairstyle and shoes
it's more than confidence
and clothes
It's hard to feel good
about what I possess
inside
when it's all dripping
out of my nose.

DRIP (Lamentation of a Sneezer)

By Kristen 

Don't you sometimes
want to let your
nose just drip
and drip
without even trying to sniffle it
or catch it
with a well-worn, well-used
tissue,
crumpled, torn and disgusting
Don't you sometimes
want to let it
drip
when no one else it around
(after all,
who's to know?)
when your nose is red
and raw
and sore
and it feels like it's going to
explode
at any minute
oh, how much better it would
be to let it drip
than to go through the
agony
of wiping it.

sneezy

by Kristen 

Just call me sneezy
and I’ll share my life with you
I sneeze and wheeze and sniffle and cough
the whole entire day through
Just give me a bunch of tissues
and I’ll give you a thought to think
I promise you I’ll use them up
before you have time to wink
“Bless you!” “Bless you!” “Gesundheit!”
good grief
all the blessings in the world
won’t bring me my relief
So I sneeze and wheeze and sniffle and cough
the entire day through
while you bless me to your hearts content
and feel glad this isn’t you
So give me boxes of tissues for Christmas
I’ll be very happy
watch my nostrils quiver and queasy
have a nice day
just call me sneezy.

A Car Story

When Zac and I were first married, neither one of us had a car. We had been college students with our roots out of state, heretofore able to get everywhere by foot: school, church, work, groceries. We hadn't needed a car and we couldn't have afforded one anyway. Plus, going home for vacations and summer to NJ and VA, respectively, was easier without a car to worry about.

But then, we were a married couple. We borrowed a truck from our good friend's girlfriend to use to leave our wedding reception and I taught Zac to drive its stick shift on our honeymoon. It was sort of hilarious, but we were just so happy to be married, we really didn't care much. When we went back to school in January (and returned the truck), Zac was riding his bike in the snow to work at night from 10 pm - 2 am (not the most ideal). Our church for married students was farther away than previous congregations had met. It was possible to walk there, but it took a long time. So we ended up asking for rides (especially when it was snowing) and that was kind of a pain. And yeah, walking back from the grocery store with bags of food on our backs and draped over each shoulder and arm was getting tiring.

So we decided to look for a car.  Wohoo!!
Zac found a 96 Toyota Tercel that was in our price range; a salvaged title but only 17,000 miles, 2 years old, and in great condition.
We had a friend drive us to look at it and purchase it. He drove us 30 min away to my uncle's bank where we applied for our loan.
And then we were the happy owners of our little Tercel.

The following summer (1999), after I had graduated and given birth to Abigail, Zac had an internship at an accounting firm in DC. We did an apartment swap with a couple in Fairfax so we stayed in their furnished apartment but we still had to bring some dishes and baby gear, plus clothes etc for the whole summer. We packed all of this bumper to bumper, floor to ceiling, in the Tercel and drove from UT to NJ (first) to VA with Abigail only 3 weeks old. I remember she still had her umbilical cord stump attached when we left. It came off sometime during the trip. She was nursing and we stopped about every hour or so the entire trip, either to breastfeed, or change diapers, or comfort her in some way. It was quite possibly the most uncomfortable, tiring, hot, awkward, and LONG trip of my entire life. We pulled off on highway exits just to stop on the side of the road (because there really isn't anything else around on some long stretches of Wyoming, etc) and sat there to nurse her. One night in particular we sat in the car in the dusk, facing some fenced off field full of cows, and the cows came closer to investigate this silly sight of me feeding a baby with the side door open (it was hot) on the side of a road where I'm sure not many people ever have reason to stop.

But we made it. We visited Zac's parents in NJ, then went on to Fairfax, VA where we stayed for the summer. Then we reversed the entire trip to go back to UT at the end of the summer. Abigail was a few months older then, of course, so it wasn't quite as difficult, having settled into a somewhat more regular and spaced out nursing schedule. But, still. Oh the memories of being crammed in there with all our stuff, sitting in the backseat with baby Abigail so I could try to comfort and entertain her all those miles.

The summer after that (2000), Zac graduated with his Masters and we actually moved out to VA, where he had accepted a job with the same company he had interned with. And we drove that same trip again, in the same little car. Except this time, most of our belongings were in an ABF U-Pack truck making their way across the country without us. Phew!!

And then, when we ended up moving back to UT (yet again) after living in VA for just a year, Zac drove the Tercel yet again cross country. I flew by myself, with Abigail (age 2) and Isaac (age 2 months). This was an adventure in and of itself. But I was just happy not to be driving in that car again for that long with a nursing baby.

Anyway - we've kept that car for 16 years. It's been Zac's commuting car. And as it got older, the clutch became more temperamental. The engine light came on at random times for reasons we didn't really want to find out. 2 seatbelt latches in the backseat broke and the driver's seatbelt sometimes required some coaxing to get latched (dumb thing). Zac crashed into a deer, smashing in the side and roof and front window. The window was replaced, the dents weren't so easily fixed. The paint started rusting and peeling. But it was a good car, still running, and doing its job.

We thought we might keep it to have Abigail learn to drive on (I've always thought my kids should learn to drive stick!). But then, we paid off our minivan and the Tercel had its registration up the end of July. We would have had to have it pass safety inspection to register it again and with the engine light on, we didn't really want to have to pay to fix another problem to get it to pass. So, the timing was right. It was time for a new car!

And thus we said goodbye to the first car we owned as a married couple. The little Tercel we had driven cross country so many times and had been through so much with us. We didn't want to mess with trying to sell it so we just took it in for a trade. They gave us a whopping $350 for it! 

And now we have a new-ish car. We love it.

And that's the story.:)

a few of my favorite things 2013: a moment

This is my favorite moment from 2013:

It's from my trip back to Virginia for my 20 year high school reunion this past summer.  The day after the reunion, I met up with a couple of my friends at an old park in the neighborhood we had grown up in. Most of the playground equipment that we remembered had long since been taken out and replaced, which was sad. Except for this sweet old metal whale! And you all know how much I love whales anyhow. So I told my friend I wanted a picture of me sitting on the whale.  Well, I sat down on it and the springs on the poor old whale were so old and loose that as I sat on it's tail, I immediately swung so far back that I almost hit the ground, which of course came as a bit of a surprise, so I started laughing uncontrollably as I swung back up and leaned forward to keep myself upright! And this is the shot she got of me on the whale.  People have told me that they like this picture of me, how nice it is to see me genuinely happy and smiling and laughing. And I agree with them. It isn't often that I get pictures of myself laughing. And I don't often like the way I look anymore smiling too hard, honestly. My face gets all scrunched up and I have a double chin and my eyes are squished and it's really not my best look, take my word for it. But this, I like this picture. And I liked remembering happy times of my childhood with good friends. Lots of good times at that playground.  So many memories. So this is a good moment.:)

Honestly, the trip to Virginia was kind of a hard one for me. 

(I'm just going to leave these photos interspersed out of order throughout the post because it's too much of a pain to try to put them in order, so just enjoy them for their randomness. Maybe they'll make some sort of sense to you. I'll put captions at the bottom. There.:))

The whole idea of going to the 20 year reunion was a hard one. Not knowing who would be there. If people would recognize me. Knowing I have changed - a lot. Had 4 babies. Etcetera. But also knowing that I don't care too much. That I don't care enough to keep me away anyway. But also being very nervous. What have I done in the 20 years since High School? I went on a church mission to Germany, I got married, I graduated from college, had a baby the month after and I've been a stay at home mom every since. That has been my choice and I'm happy with it, but it is hard sometimes to tell other people that who may have "expected" that I do other bigger and better things. I was afraid of listening to a night of "oh I always thought you would do ____" whatever that might be....

And then being overcome with memories of high school. It's just the name of the game, right? And oh, my. It's just kind of overwhelming. Sometimes. It can be that way for me.

And I don't go back to Virginia often. I was born there and lived there my entire life until I got after my mission when we moved after I got home. So the place itself is very strong with memories, for me. Especially this time, with the reunion. It just felt saturated. Dripping with memories everywhere I turned. I was kind of a mess. And I was very nervous about traveling with the pain, too. The flight. And I had never ever gone on a trip all alone before. I know that seems silly, being an adult and everything, but my anxiety was just very high and my pain was very high. I had a bad migraine every single day of the trip. That alone makes me a little crazy. I stayed with my sister and her husband, who I appreciated very much. They worked full-time so I was left to do whatever I planned to do, which was perfect. But I didn't have as much of a plan as I had planned to have, which was stressful for me. I would very much like to be a person that can be spontaneous and can go with the flow and just do whatever comes my way and whatever but I learned that what this does is increases my stress a hundred fold and then I become sort of paralyzed with indecision, and then I make bad decisions. Or I drive around aimlessly and get lost, or end up places I don't really intend on ending up. Or going the wrong way down one way streets. Or all of the above. It's not really good for me. I get emotional.

Some things worked out really well. I did see some friends that I hadn't seen in many many years and I loved catching up with them and it was wonderful. Some things didn't work out as well. Some plans fell through. I got lost, a lot. Every day I got lost. My GPS on my phone kept dropping out, leaving me driving along with no more directions and pulling into random parking lots trying to get it to reconnect and turning around multiple, multiple times, every time I tried to go anywhere. Northern Virginia is a zoo with traffic anyway, but everywhere I went had changed unrecognizably. Even places where I knew I should know where I was, I no longer had any clue where I was. I got lost late at night coming back from the reunion in my own neighborhood, the one I lived in for over 20 years. I was turned around, completely disoriented and about in tears (in my defense, there are no streetlights in the neighborhood so it was pitch dark and I just have a terrible sense of direction - plus, all the trees had grown so much taller!). In fact, I think just about every single day I was there I ended up in tears for one reason or another. I couldn't find my best friend's house in Fredericksburg (she no longer lives there). I drove around where I knew it should be, just to look at it, because I had time to kill, and never even came close. No idea where I was.

It was so overwhelming and disorienting to be "home" but to feel so lost.  I just felt lost. Virginia will always always be home for me. But I felt like in some ways, I was saying goodbye on this trip. There won't be another high school reunion for however many years. I tried to soak in as much as I could, though I know it will never be enough.   I didn't belong anymore. I don't belong anywhere. I've become homeless.

The reunion itself was good, I was so glad that I had gone, although for some reason I managed not to eat a single bite the entire night. So many of the people there were people I had known since kindergarten. They weren't really my "crowd" during high school. But they felt almost like family to me, I have just known them for so long. I don't know if they feel the same way about me. They probably don't. But oh well. I was happy to see them, at any rate. I was the one who became the "alternative girl" into middle school and high school and stopped hanging out with the cool kids. They just thought I was weird. So the reunion was mostly the more popular kids.  I was ok with that. I don't really care. Most of them didn't remember me unless I had already been friends with them before High School. Hahahaha.;) Oh and if I'm going to classify cliques, some of the really smart kids were there too . I knew them too, happily. So I had some people to talk to. But I stood the whole time not really knowing who to stand next to, becoming increasingly uncomfortable in the heels I wore that I hardly ever wear. Ha. The music was loud, people danced, I laughed and talked to people and caught up and tried not to cry and tried to decide how honest to be about my life and pain issues. But it was good.

There were sooooooo many people that I wish had been there that weren't though. Many many many. It made me miss them.

(I did also get to be there for my sister's baby shower for her first baby which was just so much fun!! I do hope to be able to get out to visit her and her new little family more often. I wish, I wish....)

Oh. And I just discovered that I have lost my photos from this trip. All of them except for what I posted in the reunion group on FB and what I posted personally on FB and on Instagram. I'm a little heartbroken about it - there were a lot of just little things, places and buildings (like the house I grew up in and the church I attended) that I took pictures of that are lost and that I don't know when I will get back to go see again. They may not even be there when I get back there again.  I get attached to places. I seem to hang little pieces of myself in the places I've been and when I go back, I see myself there and say hello again. It's important to me, part of who I am.

Anyway, so I guess I ache for what I've lost, as we all sometimes do.
Childhood, places as I knew them, memories, friendships and relationships as they once were, photos, home...
It was an interesting and sort of hard trip to take. But I'm still really glad I did. We can never really go back to anything. We know this. Some people have no desire to go back and see the places where they used to be. They don't want to be reminded of painful pasts, or memories they've put behind them, and high school is just so done, right?
But I guess I'm never one to shy away from nostalgia even though sometimes it hurts. I need to be reminded that the good parts of who I was are still part of who I am. I'm still that girl too. And I still have a home in Virginia, even when I feel lost and homeless.

(photos:
-  me on the whale
-  me and Megan who I've known since kindergarten under our Class of 93 sign
 - my Senior class photo
- beautiful green VA trees
 - old map of Northern VA in the Fairfax County museum I ended up in one day
 - me looking through old nostalgic photos before my trip
- my high school memorabilia
- flying out of Reagan National Airport over DC - saying goodbye
- Virginia postcard
- Megan, Anne and Me ( I met Anne in middle school but she lived in our neighborhood & knew Megan in neighborhood preschool)
- me in front of our High School, the night of our reunion before going over 
- Scott, Ben and Erik that I've known since kindergarten or at least 1st grade
- view from airplane
- me and Shelly who was my best friend in 6th and 7th grade, then she moved away but we stayed in touch
- Amy, Megan and me (we've known each other since kindergarten)
- view of Rappahanock River, Fredericksburg, VA - one of my favorite places
- Kindergarten class picture (pictured, me, Megan, Amy & Scott - from above pictures - can you find us? Erik and Ben were in the other kindergarten class)
- Senior Class memorabilia table - including the literary magazines that I was a huge part of
- Anne, Carolyn and me (Carolyn lives near me! but this was the first time we'd seen each other - across the country - haha)
- My very pregnant little sister Melissa at her baby shower
- Erin, Christina, Amy and me - we had a separate little reunion get together

Things You May Not Know About Me (Bonus Edition)

If you've been on Facebook lately, you've seen the thing going around where someone gives you a number and you post that many things about yourself that not everyone may know about you. But not all of you may be friends with me on facebook and some of you stalwarts may not even be on facebook at all.  I know. 

 So, I am reposting the 8 random things that people may or may not know about me. And then, as a BONUS for those of you that already saw this on my facebook page, I am going to give you some extra stories that you may not have already heard!! So keep reading, you won't regret it!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  Alright I was given the #8 so - 8 things people may not know about me. I've made a lot of new pain buddies and many people who have only known me since all of that started so there are some things that people may not know about me before all that started such as: 

1. Right as my pain was starting I was training for and completed my first and only sprint triathlon. I miss really exercising. 
2. I read approx 100 books a year on average and I will read books about just about anything.
3. I've written in over 50 journals.
4. I birthed 3 of my 4 children naturally and breastfed for a total of ... approx 6 1/2 yrs - lol.
5. I never figured out what I wanted to be when I grew up. I was interested in too many disparate things. This still really bothers me. I'm a stay at home mom, which is what I really wanted. And now I am mostly bedridden with pain anyhow. But if I wasn't those things, what would I be? I don't know.
6. I consider myself a half expert in ultra marathon running since my better half is an ultra runner. It's a funny thing being a spouse of a crazy person like that. 
7. I play the violin but it's another thing that is aggravated by the facial pain. I haven't really been able to play.
8. One thing I love that not many people know is bread making. In another life I think I'd like to live in Germany and own a bakery. Yummm.

One thing I learned when my older sister did this on her facebook is that when she and I were quite little (I was 1 or 2, and she was 4 or 5), my parents apparently picked up a hitchhiker and had him sit in the backseat with us. He proceeded to threaten my sister and I with a knife to rob my parents or something. My sister remembers this happening to her. I obviously do not - but I'm still kind of disturbed to learn about it.

Another thing that happened to us when we were very little is that my mom was traveling alone with us by train to visit relatives once and when the train was crossing a bridge over a river it crashed and tipped over and everyone had to walk along the windows to evacuate. I was a baby and so my mom was carrying me. My sister was 3 yrs old and my mom was holding her by the hand. This was in the middle of the night, so it was dark and she could only hear the river rushing below them. I imagine this must have been terrifying.

One thing that I do remember happening when I was little was when we had a copperhead snake on our back patio. This must have been in the somewhat early 80's. Our neighborhood had it's own police force so my mom called the police and the officer came to our house and blew the snakes head off with a rifle. I'm not exactly sure why this was the best course of action, but it saved the day!

We had a lot of snakes around our semi-rural neighborhood when I was little. I remember a time when I was riding my tricycle around my driveway, I must have been around 3 or 4, and I came around to the front of the house to our sidewalk and there was a huge black snake in the middle of the sidewalk and it reared it's head up at me. I have no idea what kind of snake it was but I was absolutely terrified and I just jumped off my tricycle and ran away.

It seems that we also somehow had snakes that got into our basement somehow. I don't know how it happened. Mom? Dad? Someone might be able to tell me how we got snakes into the basement. It might have had something to do with flooding. I'm not sure. But then I developed quite an irrational fear of having snakes in the basement. I had nightmares about it for years.  In fact, it's entirely possible that this didn't really happen and it was all just dreams but I really hope that's not the case because that would be really freaky.  I really think it did happen once and that's what started the nightmares.  And my new neurologist is also a sleep specialist and he asked me a lot of questions about my sleep and dreams history and he says that it's really not normal to become confused between what is real and what you have dreamt. So. Yeah.

I also had fears of seeing Giants looking at me through our second story windows. No idea why.  And tornadoes.  I had a huge paranoia of tornadoes. I had heard that they sound like trains so I would lay in my bed at night, listening to the wind and straining to hear if it sounded like a train approaching, my heart pounding.  I also slept on the top bunk of a bunk bed and I was so afraid of a tornado coming, I would move to the floor to sleep, because I thought that if our roof blew off I'd surely be the first to go with it and I didn't want to get blown away by myself.  This was when I was about 9 years old. I know this kind of fear is developmental as children learn about the world and become afraid of all the bad things that can happen but I'm not sure if all kids are as afraid as I was or for as long as I was. I don't really know.

Anyway - so hmm there's an interesting collection of stories about me that you may not have already known. Some interesting little traumas I don't even remember which reminded me of some little weird memories and some of my early fears. What were you afraid of as a child? Do you think my fears were unusual?  Do you have things you dreamt that you can't remember if it really happened or not? Do you think early traumatic experiences that you can't even remember can still affect you? 
Anything else you feel like commenting?  Please do.:)

happy day

17 years ago today, Zac and I met.

This is us saying goodbye to our "special trashcan" at the end of the school year (not a very flattering shot of either of us - haha).

In case you've missed the story in past posts (which I'll repost sometime) it goes something like this:

(there may be some debate between us as to the exact sequence of events, but that notwithstanding . . . )

We met at an outdoor dance at our dorms, our first weekend as freshman at BYU. And somehow we ended up standing by this trashcan. And Zac was kind of nervously hitting the trashcan lid as we talked. Until I suggested that maybe we could dance, instead of stand around the trashcan.

And the rest is history . . . . :)

Flashback Friday: Journals #40-44

(sorry this is late)

So this week's journal flashbacking continues through my sophomore year of college and into my junior year (basically most of 1995).

It was during this time that I gradually switched majors from English to Therapeutic Recreation. Maybe some other time I'll explain my thought processes in that decision. It was wrenching.

I continued writing Zac. And sorta dated some other guys too (By the way, I am deliberately omitting much particular mention of any other guys besides Zac - and avoiding any pics of me with anyone else as well. Just in case you've been wondering. I just feel it's better this way, to try not to detract from my overriding purposes in sharing this stuff. Boys are just too distracting. Let's not go there.) ;)

Anyway, most of what I notice from these entries is that I was stressed and tired pretty much all of the time. Mind you, I went to a church school ranked #1 in the nation for "stone cold sober" colleges. I wasn't drinking and partying. But I never ever ever EVER got enough sleep. I fell asleep in class. I fell asleep sitting on the floor in the hallway in between classes. Any chance I got, I would nap. I am a girl who needs sleep. I know this now. I guess I wasn't able to accept that in college.

And it was during this second half of my sophomore year that I somehow got this crazy idea in my brain that I could take 2 classes that met at the same time. I had to get permission to take 19 credit hrs (the usual max is 18). And it involved sending a tape recorder to the class I skipped in order to attend the other class every other week. Yeah. I'm not sure what I was thinking.

But it appears to be a common theme at that time that I thought I was capable of handling much more than I actually could. hahaha. And it fed into more aspects of my life than just academics. I think there is sufficient evidence in several circumstances to determine that I had lost my mind. Really. What was I thinking?!?

Anyway.

Here's an excerpt.

March 10 1995

Can I just tell you all the things that fall into that category?

First - PAINS (starting from the bottom up) my heels and arches, sharp pains in my left ankle, up my shin bone and through my knee, several sets of muscles extremely sore and tender, my new knee injury, headache piercing through my ear and continuing down my neck. Who knows what else.

STRESS - Zoology test now through Mon, religion paper due Tues, religion exam Tues or Wed, ASL Life Event Story due Mon, Creative Writing poem and reading, Health gunk, my 2 research papers due in 2 wks! (and I haven't done much work on either!!) my 311 autobiography due the same week, then the following week a 5 pg book report on a book I haven't started reading. AHHH!! Plus normal schoolwork.

Oh, the joys. :)

And I am having a really hard time digging out pics from this time. I'm not sure where they are and it's driving me nuts! This is pretty much the only one I could find. One of my roommates was taking a photography class and this is me helping her out with an "experimenting with flashlight photography" assignment. I know - it's freaky.

Flashback Friday: Journals #38-40

So, after dating that entire school year, Zac then left to serve a mission for The Church Of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints for 2 years. As is the case with missionaries, we knew that our only contact for those 2 yrs would be weekly letters and sometimes tape recordings mailed to each other. That's it. I spent that summer working long days as a packer for a moving company, which was miserable, and then I returned to college 3 months after Zac had left. And I found myself wandering sad and lonely around the campus where I had previously spent almost every waking hour with him. It was a really hard time for me. I was still an English Major at the time, and in one of my literature anthologies, I ran across this poem, which is quoted in my journal, August 29, 1994:

Separation

by W.S. Merwin

Your absence has gone through me

like thread through a needle

everything I do is stitched with its color

This poem impacted me so deeply, I decided I was in love with W.S. Merwin (or something like that). And I decided to do my 10-pg research paper for one of my English classes on his writings. And I posted his picture on my wall and looked at his face everyday for 3 months (or whatever it was) to keep me thinking about doing my research. It was somewhat motivating.

I felt attached to him. I spent a lot of time thinking about him (and reading his poetry). And I spent even more time contemplating how precisely this poem described how I was feeling at the time. I never did discover who it was exactly that he had been separated from, or under what circumstances. But it was clear to me that he knew this feeling well.

Anyway, in trying to find a picture of him online, I also discovered that he is the US Poet Laureate for 2010-2011 (he is now 82 yrs old)! Timely, I suppose, that I am re-reading the journal time period when I was obsessed with this poem of his.

Flashback Friday: Journals #36-38

I didn't read as much this week. I guess it took a lot out of me getting through high school (ha ha), so I needed to take a bit of a break. But these latest journals chronicle the very exciting times of when I first met Zac in college (our first weekend, as a matter of fact). I wrote a post last year about how we met, and posted these same pictures there but I just thought I'd repost the pics for those that missed it. And perhaps sometime soon I'll repost our story as well. :)

Enjoy this little tidbit of journal fun.


Sept. 4 1993 (I had just met Zac the day before)
12:37 AM

. . . . Let me say that I've been spending a lot of time with a guy named Zack ____ (I'll tell you about it tomorrow) and he's just really great. Tonight he asked to hold my hand. :) It was sweet. Goodnight. -me



Sept. 5 1993

12:42 AM

Almost exactly 12 hrs later - wow. And I'm still smiling inside because of Zack. :) It's kind of a nice feeling that I've missed for awhile. In fact, it's hard to actually sit and concentrate to write what's been going on. My mind wanders away and smiles to itself and gets lost in music and daydreams . . .

Flashback Friday: Journals #28-36

Well, this week's reading brought me through 11th and 12th grade, and a little bit into college. But since college represented an entirely new chapter in my life, I'm going to save that for next week. :)

For now, let's just finish up high school, shall we?

For the record, it was during this time that I mostly stopped wearing make-up and started letting my hair grow long. Why that is, I can't really say. But there it is.

This was in 11th grade (91-92) :

Sometime in there:
1993 - I got this dress for my 18th birthday :):

And I fell asleep on the floor making a mix-tape for a boy my Senior year. My youngest sister Heather would sometimes like to lie on my back to nap. It was surprisingly comfortable, for both of us I guess.

:)

Speaking of tapes, a friend of mine made a mix-tape for me in 11th grade (yes, back in the days of cassette tapes) and she dedicated this song on it to me. So I guess we can just call it my 11th grade theme song. It kept running through my head as I read through these journals, so go ahead and listen while you read to get the feel of it.

The Girl With The Loneliest Eyes. According to my friend, that would've been me.

Judging from the majority of my entries of this time period, these years were apparently mostly spent feeling bored, lonely and tormented.

Some other common recurring themes I have noticed:

1. dreams - I wrote so much about my nighttime dreams that sometimes it is hard to differentiate between events that really happened and those that I only dreamt. But it is so interesting to see how different stresses and events played out in my dreams. I don't know if I recognized it at the time, but my subconscious seemed to be very busy sorting out all kinds of things in my sleep. It's sort of fascinating.

2. cleaning - I can't even count how many times I mentioned needing to clean my room. Or that I just cleaned the kitchen. Or however many other different variations on that theme. Just let it be known that no small detail of my life was too insignificant to put in my journal. hahaha. (and now you see how my blog has become an extension of that) ;)

3. boys - well, duh.

4. shaving my legs - I have no idea why, but for some reason writing in my journal seemed to often go hand in hand with observing the state of needing to shave. It was on my mind a lot, I guess. So funny.

5. Rain - And finally, I really really loved the rain. I would anticipate storms coming through, I would go out and sit in it, or walk through it, or sit in my window watching it. And I mentioned over and over again how cleansing and cathartic I felt like rainstorms were. I felt like I needed it and always felt so much better after it rained. Oh how I miss it . . .

And here is one excerpt for you (is anyone enjoying these?!?! I need some feedback . . . pleeeeease. . . )

March 1993

"So what was my point in writing this?

I was just overwhelmed with feelings and thoughts that I didn't know what to do with. It's like you are my junk drawer. I try to sort through things and organize and file away in my mind, hang up in the closet of my brain, and sometimes I am successful in tidying everything up and other times I take what's left over and shove it into the junk drawer. You know the one.

So you get to hear all the junk that doesn't belong anywhere else. No one could understand why this isn't read by anyone. It's just not suitable; inappropriate. Rated KG, Kristen's Guidance Suggested Before Viewing. As you can tell, I'm getting tired now.

In here, you find all the stuff that I know is really garbage but can't bring myself to throw away. All the thoughts I know I'll never need again but which remain in the comfort that I have them accessible should I ever frantically try to remember where I put them. I know where to look: the junk drawer."

I just hope someone else might be enjoying the tidbits I'm sharing of this little journey I've been taking through my junk drawer this summer. It's always an adventure to see what we'll find stashed in there. :)

Flashback Friday: Journals #18-27

(first, a note about the pics. I'm including photos at the request of my dear littlest sister. But my scanner is kaput so I am having to take pictures of the pictures which doesn't always work very well. And my old photos are just loose in a box so I basically just grab a few and see what I get, with no real purpose or thought. Just so you know.)

This first one is from about 1988 or 89 - around 8th grade-ish, I think.


This is Feb 1991 when my cute little niece Chelsea was born!! (10th grade)


Big parade at the end of the Gulf War, also in 1991. We can call this the "year of the headband" as you might notice I have a headband on in all 3 pics from this time period. And, I find it humorous that I am standing in the exact same stance in these last 2 photos. I must have stood that way a lot, I guess. hahaha.

Summer 1991 - after 10th grade

Anyway - this week's journal reading brought me through the end of 9th grade and into 11th grade. Here are a couple entries that make me laugh:

May 1990

"4:50 pm Good Afternoon, my love. Would you like to hear all the horrendous events of my day?

With all my positives and negatives, today turned out to be a -25.

1. jabbed my toothbrush into my bottom gum (-5)

2. missed the bus (-3)

3. had to go practice small ensemble (orchestra) (-1)

4. watched movie in German class (+1)

5. sang in gym class (+3)

6. watched movie in English class (+1)

7. small ensemble in orchestra (-2)

8. ___ and ____ stayed through lunch (-1)

9. oral report - bell rang - rushing - everyone waiting for me to finish (-10)

10. dissected a pig (-8)

So yes, some minorly good things happened but overall today was a crappy day."

August 1990

"I just can't get over the bracelet bit [a guy had given me a bracelet out of the blue] . . . So here are my options:

#1 Wear the bracelet

and here are the consequences (one, all, none, or many could occur)

a. He would notice and conclude that I was wearing it to express to him that I liked it a lot.

b. he would think I liked him a lot for giving it to me

c. he wouldn't notice

d. he would notice but not care

e. I would receive many comments such as "I see you're wearing his bracelet!" spoken with that "special" tone of voice by those who know the story

f. I would be complimented on my lovely bracelet.

Option #2 Not wear the bracelet

consequences:

a. he would notice and conclude that it meant nothing to me that he gave it to me

b. he'd think I just didn't like it

c. he'd think I didn't like him

d. he wouldn't notice

e. he would notice but not care

f. someone would "thinks to himself" that I should have worn it at least to be polite

So there you go. You may be wondering to yourself why the subject of whether or not to wear a bracelet is so terribly mind-wrenching to me and in answer to your question, I don't have an answer!"

So. My oh my. And if you happen to have been in any way involved or connected to this particular bracelet incident (as I have a feeling some of you may be), then please just laugh. Just laugh. And I know some of you may wonder what became of this dilemma and . . . did I wear the bracelet? And I can't even remember. Whatever the dreaded consequences may have been after all my agonized decision making, apparently it wasn't dramatic enough to write about. haha.

So, I was a silly girl who over-thought, over-analyzed, over-felt everything. And during this time, I think I let go of some great friendships in pursuits of some silly boys who really didn't care. Sigh. Could I have even done otherwise if someone had pointed out to me the folly of my ways? Somehow I doubt it. I could not have been other than I was. It will be difficult to watch my kids go through some of this stuff and sit back and allow them the freedom to make their own choices and learn from them. I guess the lesson I have learned the most in my recent reading is just that we all have our own story, we all make our way the best we can, and learn lessons we need to grow from. And while I often thought that home, family and marriage would be the "happily ever after" I yearned for, the story doesn't actually end. I am still struggling and striving and slipping just like I did then. And that's ok.

I'll just leave you with this quote that sums up this week's flashback:

"I am sixteen, going on seventeen,

I know that I'm naive

Fellows I meet

will tell me I'm sweet

and willingly, I believe."

(from The Sound of Music, of course, quoted in my lovely journal at age 16)

Too true, too true. :)

Flashback Friday - up to journal #17

(no pics this time. Sorry Heather)

So this week's journal reading brought me through 8th and 9th grade. There were some very interesting times. Quite a lot of heartbreak - both from boyfriends and best girl friends. Some of it made for some tough reading. But here is a benign entry I feel like I can share.

Jan 1990

"I'm very tired. During the exam [school midterms], I kept getting so tired and certain questions of something would trigger a memory of like 4th grade or something - simple unrelated abstract memories. And I kept getting these overly familiar images from some of my past dreams and my mind would want to retreat into the dream and I'd have to literally command myself in my mind to come back here where I really was and concentrate on the exam. Needless to say, I was quite distracted. Not to mention the times my mind insisted on starting to reminisce over ____ [a certain boy, of course]. I hope I did ok on my exam. :)"

So, as I have been rereading all this stuff I have been trying to ask myself how I have changed, or what I can learn about myself from what I went through then. Sometimes it's hard to see. I am still so much the same, somewhat unfortunately, I guess. I still go through periods of depression where I feel worthless and alone (what I often referred to as "my certain state of mind" back then). I still long for closer friends and say things to people that I later regret. So I wonder sometimes what it means exactly to "grow up"? What does it mean to be responsible and mature anyway? I figure I must be different than I was then in at least some ways. Certainly, I am confident and secure in my marriage relationship in a way that I never really imagined and only dreamed about back then. I am so grateful for that. And I accomplished some very hard goals that I hesitantly set for myself during that time (college, mission). But in essence, deep down, am I still the same silly little girl? I don't know.

And in some ways I am equally afraid of being different as I am of being the same.

Flashback Friday

This week's flashback-journal-reading brought me through 7th grade and this boy who was my very first kiss (I promise you I will not blog about each boy I kissed - heavens-to-betsy, noooooo). But this one - well, I don't think I've even talked to him since 7th grade. And he hasn't found me on Facebook, thank goodness (hahaha). So. And well, first kisses are somewhat momentous, in their own wonderful, horrible way - aren't they?

And since I won't be sharing my actual journal entries from this time period (hahaha, don't you wish), I thought you might appreciate a photo instead. He was a cute little skater-boy, no? A jerk, actually, but cute. ;) (at least I thought so)

And don't I look just all sweet and smitten? Yeah.

7th grade romance.

yikes . . .

(anyone else want to share about their first kiss??)

Flashback Friday

I've sort of had a long-term goal of rereading all the 50+ journals I've kept since I was about 10. I just have a twisted hope that doing this might help me gain some insight into myself, put things in perspective, and provide some laughs perhaps.

I've often browsed through pages here and there for fun, but haven't ever read them all straight through. So I thought summer might be a good time to get started. And I thought I might share some snippets here and there from what I've read recently. I do this somewhat reluctantly since there are some people reading this who may have been involved in some of the drama in my life at the time . . . yes, all the way back in 4th grade. But. I will do my best to keep identities concealed and only disclose information and journal entries that I think are humorous or insightful. My intent is not to embarass anyone (except myself) or to drag reluctant skeletons from anyone's closets (but my own). If you feel that you don't want to find yourself unwillingly quoted or mentioned, email me and I'll be more cautious. ;)

So.

Here's one from Feb 1988 when I was 13:

"Last time I wrote I liked R, right? Well, he's a total idiot. I have never met anyone meaner in my life, so I hate his guts at the moment but, right now I like this guy at church. I don't know his name, but I'm determined to find it out. He's really cute and only one year older than me and I think he likes me! So, I've almost got it made! But, not quite. Next week, I'll have more on that."

Um, yeah . . . not knowing his name just might be an indication that you don't quite "have it made" (whatever that was supposed to mean). haha.
And it makes me laugh how many entries from middle school revolve around this same theme "I used to like this boy, but now I like this boy, but he likes so-and-so, and so-and-so likes so-and-so" and on and on and on.

Has anyone else reread old journals? Found anything interesting or useful? Is it worth rereading or better left alone? Burned? Am I old enough now to revisit all this stuff without being mortified? Does that point ever really come? It's amazing sometimes how much it all still feels so much a part of me. So much just engrained deep inside me. Never forgotten. I guess that's part of my motivation. I want to dig it all up, look at it again, up close and personal, and make myself laugh at it.

Anyway. We'll see how long this lasts. :)