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

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 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