teenager – Page 3 – Super Anemic

November 10, 1992

September 4, 2017

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!

September 25, 1992

August 28, 2017

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

August 21, 2017

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.

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.