February 12, 1993

Maybe it isn’t already written in stone. Maybe I won’t go into Fine Arts at Cegep. Maybe I’ll go into Drama or whatever it’s called at John Abbott. Mr Whitmore said I should seriously consider going into a career in theatre or acting. He said we he go the feeling that I knew what he was talking about when he talks about acting.  Maybe it’s not just a stupid fantasy. Maybe I can be an actress. I’ve always known I could act (or thought so) but it’s great to have it confirmed by a painfully honest drama teacher. He said I have talent. Maybe art is not my only talent, maybe that’s not the way to go.

                              I did in fact go into theatre in cegep (a type of college that only exists in Quebec, which is like the bridge between high school and university). It was a lot of fun, but ultimately pointless (like most fun things).

Anyway I haven’t eaten lunch in two days. So now my first meal comes at 3:00 p.m. and my second at 6:00 or 7:00 p.m. My eating habits are so screwed up. I’ve decided not to eat lunch at school anymore. My problem is how to get that past mom.

                             I don’t see how that would have been difficult. It’s not like she was at school with me. I think the reason I didn’t want to eat at school is because I didn’t want to have to go to the cafeteria and interact with other people. I remember at a certain point I started simply sitting at my locker during lunch and spending the time drawing. In my memories though, I was also eating during this time but I guess not. 

I wish I could get out of my own realm of reality and enter a real reality. On second thought, I don’t.

                                 Yeah, reality’s overrated. 

reality_-_worst_game_ever

February 3, 1993

It didn’t take long but I hate myself again. 

                                             lol. Nice that I can laugh at such statements now.

I don’t want my picture in the yearbook and I’m definitely not going to Grad Ball. I wish I hadn’t put my baby picture in the yearbook. I won’t write my grand blurb and I regret buying the yearbook. I don’t want to go to Cegep next year. I just want to be invisible. I want to die. I hate my life, I hate myself, I hate everything about me. I wish I could escape.

                                     Indeed, I did not go to Grad Ball or to my graduation ceremony. This is a minor example of several events (or non-events) in my life that I’m tempted to regret, but realize I cannot. The truth is, if I had gone to Grad Ball, I would not have enjoyed myself. I had no friends, not because no one liked me, but because I liked no one, least of all myself. At that time in my life I would have been miserable at such an event. It would have only served as another opportunity for me to beat myself up for my shortcomings. I can look back and interpret this so-called missed milestone as a failure, but if I had gone, it would have been an even worse failure because I would have been angry and disappointed with the way I’d interacted (or not interacted) with others.

I can think of many other missed opportunities such as this in my life. Things that might have been, but could not have been, because of who I was at the time they occurred. I often find myself frustrated with where I am in my life, and wish I’d taken action on certain things earlier, as I often feel as though I’m about a decade behind where I should be, or where most people are. A lot of the socializing that most people accomplished in their teens, I did in my twenties. Much of the growing up the typical person does in their twenties, I did in my thirties. Same with my career (both the one I get paid for, and the one I don’t). Yet I cannot blame myself for this slow growth, because I simply didn’t have the capacity to do more earlier, as I was busy working through other struggles. I’m still working through things, as no doubt we all are, and there’s no point in admonishing myself for this. I’m on my own path, no one else’s, and that’s fine. Besides, there are other ways in which I’m ahead of the curve, compared to my peers, so if I’m going to play the “grass is always greener” game, I need to acknowledge how green my own grass is once in a while.

grass-is-greener-bullshit

January 28, 1993

It’s Thursday and there’s no school tomorrow, yippee! That’s especially good because I just got my period but really bad ’cause Jacques is coming tomorrow. I hope his plane crashes. Should I feel guilty for saying that? Ahh, who cares!

                        I’ve written about Jacques before and how I hated him but can’t quite figure out why. Just reading his name now, as I was transcribing this, gave me the creeps. What did he do???

I like myself at the moment, I’ll say why but let me begin at the beginning. I’ve been feeling petty stupid because I never signed up to get my grad photo taken and now it’s too late, but I didn’t because at first I didn’t know it was for the yearbook and the teacher (idiot!) forgot to give us the notice papers about all this. So when the time came for grads who somehow missed getting it done to sign up again I was like, I guess I’ll go sign up Friday but Friday school was cancelled due to freezing rain! I guess I might have gone Monday but I was like, why bother, I have no friends anyway, who cares?! Then Wednesday I felt even dumber ’cause in drama we couldn’t go to the auditorium for some reason so we went to the fishbowl and I sat on gum! So I had a big wad of pink gum on my white jeans for the next class and it was really embarrassing ’cause I had to go up to the front of the class to say my speech for public speaking. God, I almost died. But the speech went well enough even though I spoke too fast. Today, this morning, I was feeling disappointed ’cause i didn’t get chosen for the semi-finals and it’s not fair ’cause half the class wasn’t there yesterday so some who might have voted for me didn’t (but I probably wouldn’t have gotten enough votes anyway, with my touchy subject [does God exist?]. It’s just as well not so many people were there so they didn’t see my bubblegum ass!) So anyway, as I said I got my period so I was having major cramps in my classes before drama and when drama came around I was praying to Q I wouldn’t have to say my story. I went to the bathroom and before I went into the auditorium and crouched down into the hall and cried, that’s how bad I felt. So I was all uncomfortable in the class and then Mr. Whitmore goes: Nicole, you’re next! So I’m like, oh shit! But I went up there and my cramps subsided and I said my  Echo and Narcissus story. I mixed up some lines sometimes but no one noticed (except Jane of course, who I practiced on). Everyone really liked it! Especially Mr. Whitmore who said it got a 95%. He also said I would have made a good Helene in Midsummer Night’s Dream (the play he was gonna do but didn’t). So I’m pissed that I didn’t gt the chance to be Helena in a school play but I’m still feeling pretty good from that uplifting compliment. Sigh, life is worth living. 

                             Well ok.

P.S. Mom is afraid of losing her job because… boy it’s a long story, worthy of TV. But I won’t tell it, I’ve written enough.

                          Yeah, god forbid you write anything interesting that isn’t all about you. I now have no recollection of what this TV worthy drama was, except that my mother’s boss was quite the piece of work.

P.P. S. Hey, did I ever write about x-mas vacation? I didn’t? Well, it was great. I got two new porcelain dolls. I love them. My other gifts were cool too. I was on the verge of happiness then, more than I am now. I really hate school I guess. Cegep application time soon, ahhhhh!

hate-school

 

December 10, 1992

I can’t wait ’till x-mas vacation. Only 6 more school days.

                         I still count down to vacay.

Isn’t it strange how I can only fantasize in the privacy of my own house (usually my room, sometimes TV room) when there’s no one else around? It’s like I’m afraid the people around me will read my thoughts.

                       I wasn’t talking about erotic fantasies or anything. Just regular melancholy wishing.

Once again I’m in Whitmore’s class, supposed to be writing an essay due Monday that I haven’t even started yet. I never write in my diary anymore. I only write on papers and insert them in. I should really rewrite the shorter ones or this diary won’t be able to close. I’m gonna have so much to do this x-mas vacation. I have so much to do before x-mas vac. In my last class I had the hiccups mondo time and now my stomach is grumbling an 8.5 on the Richter scale. STAR TREK TNG was one of my fave episodes last night – the one about the time loop thing. So cool! As usual Data saves the day. I’ve been thinking about a STAR TREK show that my bro and I invented. It will be called STAR TREK: THE CONTINUING MISSION. Cool, eh?

                      Yeah, super cool bro. And why did I continuously all caps ‘Star Trek’ in this entry? 

AAAAAGGG my stomach hurts! I’ve gotta buy a couple candy grams. I complain about it but I like receiving them, it’s a good feeling to know that people care enough about you to send you a 35¢ candy cane via homeroom mail. Sounds cheesy, and I guess it is. I don’t even like candy canes! I’m getting three as far as I know, so I’ll put them on the tree! Our tree’s nice I think. I did most of the decorating. I wish I had a gift exchange to do (not school wise of course). Mom’s doing one at work, the lunch table people are doing one. Keith’s doing one (even though it is class room wise) I wanna give and get. Oh well I guess I’ll just have to wait ’till x-mas. I just heard someone say that candy grams are not a measure of popularity. Of course they are! Everything in school is either a measure of popularity or academic achievement (both very unjustly weighed). I’m pathetic. I just realized I’m truly the queen of pathetic. I have no life outside of Star Trek, school, and drawing, ya know? I’ll never make it after school. I’ll never be independent. Most of all I’ll never be famous or meet my crush. I might as well face it, I’ll never meet him. Never in all my life will I ever know him. Never. I’m pathetically pitiful. I’m sitting here, writing to myself, supposed to be writing something I don’t get, and I’m not, and will never be, even significant enough to be counted as a statistic. I don’t matter at all. None of my dreams will ever come true. I’ll die young and loveless and pathetic. Life is just a bunch of lies. We lie to our friends, family, peers, authority figures, those over who we have authority, our environment, even ourselves. I’m a fake, do I know anyone who isn’t a fake? How could I know? Only the bad fakes are revealed to me. With all this, I still go on. Why do I go on? To spare grief to those I love? Why bother? I’m not sparing it, just delaying it. So I can see how the world turns out? Partly, but who cares how it will turn out once I’m dead? So I don’t miss out on all the things I want see and do? Partly, but I’ll never do them anyway, I’ll just give myself more grief. Then why do I keep on living? Fear, that’s why. Because I’m afraid. Not afraid to die, but afraid to live but also afraid not to live. I’m afraid I’ll lose the only thing I ever really had. I’m afraid to end my life, because after I turn over that point there is no turning back, no remedy for the situation. Of course once I’m dead I’ll never know the difference anyway but as I’m alive, I’m too scared to take that chance. Well, I seem to have run out of space, so I’ll reread this now and surprise myself with my own insight and realisticness. 

self-esteem-self-awareness

November 30, 1992

I’m totally bored. I hate school. I hate people. I don’t hate TV. I don’t hate movies. I don’t hate drawing. I hate going to school and being at school and being on the bus and the people on the bus and the people at school. I hate Mr. Whitmore, I hate Jane, I hate everyone but my mother and brother, and Beau Gars. (my celebrity crush). I hate school. I hate all my classes. Sometimes I hate myself, not now. I  really hate Mr. Whitmore, I seriously wish he would die. I wish I could kill him. I wish I were Q. I WISH I WERE Q. I hate my life. I am so full of hate and have no way to release it. How can I release it? Maybe I’ll make a voodoo doll of Whitmore. Yeah! I wish I were Q.

                                  Yeah, so that pretty much covers that. Kind of interesting that I never hated my mother, eh? Way to eschew teenaged girl stereotypes. 

                              Mr. Whitmore was my English teacher. At one point he called on me, to comment on something in a book the class was reading, and I took my time formulating my answer, apparently too long, because he got pissed and yelled at me, and the entire class, that we must answer questions, and not simply sit there in silence. I was utterly humiliated, and that moment has remained seared in my brain as one of the most embarrassing in all of high school. I don’t remember the timelines, so I don’t know if this happened before or after, but another time, he asked me to comment on another book, and I quite honestly replied that the book had made me realize that I’d never been happy. Even though I knew this was an embarrassing thing to say, I said it anyway because I knew it would shock him, and shut him up. Even though I was indeed embarrassed, I got the desired effect, because he stammered in response, hesitantly asking the rest of the class if anyone had a similar reaction. No one responded, because of course they didn’t, but to this day I retain that as a moment of triumph over an asshole of an authority figure. In retrospect though, he wasn’t that bad. I actually had a bit of a love/hate relationship with Mr. Whitmore. I also had him for Drama, and I was basically teacher’s pet in that class. He once said, to the whole class, that I was the only student who ever understood what he was talking about. So that was nice.

                         When I say I wish I were Q, I’m of course talking about the Star Trek character, not the Bond character. I no longer wish I were omnipotent, ’cause that’d be boring, but I still love Star Trek. I’m recapping TNG these days, so head on over and check it out.

encounter-at-farpoint-04

November 10, 1992

Tuesday:
2:30 – 3:00 – take shower, blah, blah, blah
3:00 – 4:00 – watch Joan Rivers show
4:00 – 5:00 – watch taped next Generation episode
5:00 – find paper with group story I started writing; wait for inspiration
6:00 – 7:00 – have supper, tell mom about homework, get help with it
7:00 – 9:30 – watch TV
9:30 – do homework, go to bed
Research Winona Ryder
note: put gym stuff in bag
put chocolate bar in fridge, eat it while watching TV
be depressed…

                                                  I wrote all that while at school and stuck the loose leaf into my diary when I got home. It’s interesting to see that my obsession with planning my life and tracking my time began early. I recently wrote a blog post about my tracking obsession, which I believed was a new passion but I guess I’ve always been this way. I’m rather amused to see that watching the Joan Rivers show was such a priority, and I have no idea why I felt the need to research Winona Ryder, nor how I intended to do so before the advent of the internet. I also got a good chuckle out of the last line: “be depressed”. Even then I had a sense of humour about my melancholy proclivities. 

                                             And then I go on and on about my “love” for my celebrity crush. Hilariously though, I conclude with this:

If, when I’m older, I read this and it seems stupid and like a dumb crush (supposing I’m over him), I’m sorry but I really do love him. If I still love him, please excuse my saving anything so realistic.

                                         So amused by my teenaged “love”, and yet surprising self-awareness about how ridiculous it was.

God I’m depressed. If I can’t have what I really want (job wise) like in my fantasies then I want to illustrate books, and write them eventually. I would really like to write Ranmadia. Please, Nic, write it over the summer, it must be done before we forget the story.

                                        Oh, this is sad. I don’t know what I was referring to with the job that I really wanted, but even my backup plan of illustrating and writing books did not come to pass. And no, I never did write Ranmadia. It was a story my brother and I had come up with together. He narrated the story, and I responded with what the protagonist did. My brother was already GMing table-top role-playing games with his friends by this point so that’s basically what this story was, an RPG without the dice. I felt like it was such a good story, and I was so desperate to get it down on paper, and yet I never did. And now I don’t remember it at all.

Sigh, sigh, sigh, sigh, sigh
To do over long weekend:
Watch Beauty and the Beast
Watch taped episodes of Young Indy
Do all homework (yeah right) no really
Paint Ranmadia thing
Draw those pictures from magazines
I hate my life and self

                                     Geez, kid, you’re such a downer!

abyss

September 25, 1992

I hate school! I thought it would be a great year, what a joke. It doesn’t matter what courses I’m taking I’m still me.

                                      The eternal problem.

And the fact that I feel nauseous every day doesn’t help. I think I’m seriously sick… let’s not speak of such unpleasantries. Excuse me while I go cry and fantasize my way to sleep.

                                    I’m not sure what this nausea was about, unless it was menstrual. Before I started taking birth control pills I got my period about every three weeks and it was brutal. I’ve been known to throw up in public places more than once because of this problem. The nausea could have also been anxiety though. When I was a child I had chronic stomach aches and when I complained about it to my mother she brought me to a doctor who told me there was nothing wrong. That was one of the first times I learned not to trust/listen to doctors (that deserves a rant of its own which I’ll save for another day). In any case, it was only thirty years later that the medical community finally acknowledged the connection between stomach pain and anxiety, especially in children. When I read a few of the articles referring to these studies the lightbulb clicked and I realized this was what I’d been suffering from my entire childhood.

October 11, 1992

Since Michelle (my sister’s friend) came over for Thanksgiving supper she had us say all the stuff we were thankful for. All I said was that I was thankful Star Trek TNG plays everyday and has a new season and that the Young Indianna Jones Chronicles plays. Pretty sad, eh?

                                    Yeah, sad. Fictional characters were, at that time, my only friends. Today I’m happy to report that I also have one or two IRL friends, so… progress!

fictional-characters-need-our-emotions-more-than-real-life-people

August 19, 1992

I did finally clean my room the other day. Last Sunday I think. It’s a great feeling knowing my room is clean. And it wasn’t such a drag doing it. I think I’ll survive.

                                      Survive what? The next 25 years of your life? Yeah, you will.

The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles are playing again. I’m pretty Star Trek-asized these days too. Life isn’t that bad for me now. I’m pretty into it. Pretty content. I have my dreams… I’m not dreading back to school, although I can’t say I’m looking forward to it either.

                                      Ahh to be young again, when summer vacation lasted two whole months, rather than just two weeks.

August 21, 1992

Today I found out that school stars the 27th! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! Less than a week! What a shock! And due to budget cuts there is a time change. School now begins at 7:45 – this means I have to wake up at like 6:30, or 6:45. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! I don’t know how I’m going to handle it! Last year I could hardly crawl out at 7:00. It could maybe zombie my way through the morning waking at 7:10. So I’ve decided to devise a plan. As soon as I get home from school, straight away I do my homework (Keith and I will force each other to do it). Then take a nap. Then wake up, have supper, watch TV, and go to bed. I think I’ll be able to manage waking so early if I stick to the plan and get that nap. I must stick to the plan. And I have to start waking earlier this week to get accustomed to it.

                                         early-riser   It was ridiculous then, and remains ridiculous now, that teenagers must wake up so freakin’ early to get to school. Plenty of studies have confirmed that adolescents  are natural night-owls and do better in school if they are allowed to start at a later time. Yet our society is not structured for families, or children. Our society is structured for rich old men. Why should any office have start and end times? Why can’t people just work when it’s convenient for them? 

 

                                           In any case, my plan half worked. I did take naps every afternoon but only because I was constantly exhausted. I was an insomniac at this age and never managed to fall asleep at a decent hour, regardless of when I went to bed, so I was sleep deprived for most of my adolescence. I think this contributed to my depression at that time.

This has got to be the ultimate year.

                                      It was not the ultimate year.

I’m not taking any math courses. I think I might gt gas permeable contacts some time this year.

                                       I tried gas permeable and they were incredibly painful. My mom was pissed that I refused to wear them.

I’m 16. As long as I do things to make myself near happy (because you realize happiness is impossible for me) I’ll be alright. I’ve gotten to my last year of high school, it’s gotta be great.

                                     It was not great.

I’ve got to start making things happen for myself.

                                 I did not make things happen for myself.

Maybe without math I’ll like school this year.

                                 I did not like school that year.

You know it’s weird this intimate connection with body and mind. When I think of going back to school i feel a weight in my stomach holding me down, making me sad. When I think of vacation the weight is gone and it’s the opposite. I’m lifted somehow. This definitely makes one like the prospect of vacation.

                                Yes, definitely.

I guess I gotta go. This entry was too concrete.

                              Indeed.

August 12, 1992

                                     There are a bunch of pages ripped out of my diary at this point… I have absolutely no recollection of what they may have been about. Then comes a rambling post written in Frenglish. Here is the gist translated into English for ease:

Lately I’ve been thinking rather realistically. Thinking of my real life. My fantasies weren’t there for a while. I’m bored and I want something to happen to me. I want something in my life. Something outside of my house. I don’t want to get driving lessons but I want to know how to drive. I want to have something real instead of my little dreams. I want a fun job or a fun friend who brings me places. I don’t want to be here. I want to start over. I don’t want to read stories, I want to write stories. I don’t want to watch movies, I want to be in movies. I don’t want to be a student, I want to be a teacher. I don’t want to only know that things happen in the world, I want to be someone to whom things happen. Wonderful things and terrible and exciting and real! Maybe I have to make things happen but how? It’s impossible. If I had enough athletic talent I could be in the Olympics. I wish I had enough talent for films or writing. But I don’t even have enough talent to win art contests. I’m not ambitious or smart or independent or outgoing enough to make things happen for myself. So what can I do? Nothing! I hate myself! I wish I could be anorexic. I know it’s bad and all but then at least I could make something happen for myself and I could stop menstruating, which would be great. But I like food too much to stop eating. I can’t stop eating junk! I eat all the time so I’m ugly. If only I had a friend. Someone I could talk to about everything and not be embarrassed. And someone to do things with. I know I’m screwed up. I know I need help. I know I might just go off the deep end someday. I just wish I had someone to tell that to. I wish I wasn’t so scared of people. People make me freeze. I am scared of everyone. Even myself. I can’t write any longer. I can’t think any longer.

                                    Yup, that about sums it up.

low-self-esteem

August 11, 1992

I really should clean up my room. I should dust and vacuum and organise. But I can’t get motivated to do it. Maybe when school starts.

                                    Yeah, ’cause I certainly would have felt more motivated once under the oppressive and stressful burden of high school. *eye roll*

Writing in this diary makes me sad. It makes me think too much. I don’t want to wonder, I just want to dream.

                                    So what else is new?

Crystal went skydiving Sunday. I really want to skydive. I always wanted to. Until now it wasn’t attainable, but Crystal’s boyfriend does it a lot and took her and if mom would let me he could take me too. I really wish she would let me go (and give me the money). If only she knew how much it means to me. It would be a dream come true. A reason go on living. Why is life so expensive?

                                   Wow, settle down. It’s skydiving, not winning a Pulitzer. 25 years later and I still haven’t gone skydiving but that’s because I’ve gotten over this “dream”. I’ve always really liked heights and the idea of flying which is where the skydiving obsession came from. I got over it after I went on a hot-air balloon ride, which was another of my sky dreams, and it was such an immense letdown that it squashed any other sky related dreams I had. Some things are better left in our imaginations. Also hilarious that obsessed as I was I wasn’t willing to pay for it myself. *eye roll*

There are a lot of things I want to write in here but I can’t. I don’t know how to transform these shot-thoughts into words. I can’t write that fast, or well.

Peace and long life, Live long and prosper. Yager out.

                                   I even drew a hand doing the Vulcan salute. Perhaps this is when my interest in Vulcans began. I spent most of my life idolizing this fictional race and trying to suppress my emotions, and it’s only recently that I’ve realized how much harm this willful suppression has caused me over the years.

P.S. I like tutoring Kelly. I want to be a teacher (if I can’t be an artist…)

                                Thank god I never pursued that idea. I would have been a terrible teacher. Being forced to train various people at various tasks in work settings has taught me that I’m absolute shit at imparting knowledge to others. I get needlessly frustrated when people don’t easily catch on to what I’m getting at. A flaw I get from my father I suspect. “I learned it by watching you!!!”  

drug-dad