It never fails: every time I clean out my closet, I end up going through my old diaries. I know it’s going to send me into a spiral of self-loathing, but I’m masochistic; so I do it anyway.

This is a hilarious excerpt from June of ‘96 (I was a month away from turning 14, if that’s any excuse):

6/12/96

Dear Diary,

Steve¹ is going out with Ruth². I want to run away, if I pack what I need and if I pack expensive stuff I could probably survive a couple of months if I needed to runaway. Right now I have some money & I can sell the expensive stuff*. And if I got away for a couple of months then maybe things would clear up. I hate swimming³ I want to write stories⁴ not become a fucking mermaid why can’t mom understand that? Besides mom and dad are tight on the money anyway even though I know they’d miss me it would help them out a bit only problem is where would I stay?

pro’s
no swimming
no school
no Daniela⁵
no rules
no responsibilities
no bullies

con’s
no stable food supply
no shelter
no friends
no Mayday⁶
no computer
no T.V.

*my leather jacket⁷

If you’ll notice, I was not a huge fan of punctuation back then. Also of note: the pro’s and the con’s evened out. I guess that’s why I ended up not running away.

¹the guy I had a massive crush on
²one of my best friends at the time
³I was on an optimist swim team and, around the time this entry was written, I had been fighting with my mom to let me quit. If I remember correctly, she did let me quit - right before the first meet
⁴as was common with many angsty teenagers, I fancied myself a writer.
⁵my sister, who would totally make it onto the “con’s” were I to update this list.
⁶my cat
⁷I have no idea how much I thought I was going to get for a Donna Karan knock-off