my mother found my diary from sixth grade and packed it into a box along with some other mementos of my life that she had run across: junior high yearbook in which all the faces have been decimated by red marker, my puppet 'margarita,' a bird mask, a blue plastic piggy bank with a whorishly painted face, two and a half sets of woolen gloves, bank statements from 1999, a bottle of 'pumping curls' spray, and six year old tampons. "i don't really need the bird mask," i told her, "and i'm afraid to use these tampons..."

"just take the whole box," she insisted. "these five gloves look like they're in great condition."

at home, i flipped through my old diary, delighted, at first, to have come across these archives from my past. my delight quickly turned to horror when i actually started reading. the awful truths relayed from these pages ultimately made me throw the diary away, as i just couldn't stand to have it in existence. i was a mean, bitter, nasty little girl with the handwriting of an illiterate stroke victim. i was truly a horrid person- a horrid person with an incurable crush on the son of a baseball player. every other entry mentioned this little boy. "i will always love him. sometimes i like to picture our wedding." while reading, the bile rising from my throat was almost too much to swallow; i wanted to go back in time and smack my eleven year old self, yell at her to work on her math homework, maybe take up ballet.


the worst entries almost made me cry. i was terrible to my two closest friends, constantly playing one off the other in an attempt to make sure they didn't become closer to each other than they were to me. i also would have spurts of pure hatred towards my one friend, s, for reasons that i can't explain, except by using the weak and worn excuse of miserable childhood experiences. "i hate the little scrunchies that s. wears in her hair. sometimes i just want to grab that ponytail and yank back her head. s. thinks she's so great. i'm glad her parents are out of work." holy crap. holy crap. i also put an egg in her backpack one day. "'i know you put the egg in my backpack,'" she hissed at me. i responded, 'i did not. but maybe someone else did. a lot of people hate you, you know.'"

how was the son of a baseball player ever going to fall in love with a girl who treated her best friend like dirt?

i couldn't believe that was me, but it was. all the memories came flooding back like a wave rising out of a sea of shit, and i wanted so badly to repent for my sins. immediately, i thought about trying to contact s., to apologize for not only the sixth grade stuff- but the seventh grade stuff, the eighth grade stuff, the sophomore year stuff, the huge, final argument junior year that, at long last, stopped us from speaking forever. she probably should have stopped speaking to me years before, when that first egg appeared in her backpack. some people are forgiving. other people, like me, are just kind of jerky.

not that she was a total saint or anything. but, me? i should have held myself to higher standards. i was a quiet, dorky girl wearing too-short pants. people probably thought i was relatively harmless. in reality, i was a cruel, stone-cold bitch.

it was a bad idea to keep a diary that year. looking back, it was a bad idea to keep a diary any year. blogging's probably not the best plan either.