Explanation

I was sitting in the living room the other day, drinking daiquiris with my friend Nic, when I busted out the old journal to read him a choice few entries from high school. This ended up being an entire day of reminiscing and laughing at our old, silly selves. Nic suggested that I make a blog out of my old journal entries--transcribe them and add commentary from my lofty, 24-year-old perspective. It's funny--I know it hasn't been all that long since I was enveloped in the self-absorbed melodrama of adolescence, but MAN: it seems like ages ago. I guess I finally have enough distance (temporally AND geographically) that I can publicly post things that, just a few years ago, seemed the most deeply personal and often traumatic experiences of my life.

The purpose of this blog is first and foremost to make fun of my teenage self. Sounds mean, but you should try it: go back to any paraphernalia you've saved from high school and college--letters, angsty poetry/lyrics, diaries--and try laughing instead of crying at the huge loser you were. For me, this means changing the way I've looked at those years. While they were indeed some of the most emotional, exciting, and formative of my life, they were also, well... kind of ridiculous.

Which brings me to my next reason for doing this blog: in a weird way, to recognize that I was kind of a bitch to a lot of people, and to make some roundabout kind of amends. Not directly, of course--I'll be changing names and leaving out dates, so I can't specifically apologize to those individuals I fucked over the most--but you know who you are. And I'm sorry. All I can say was that I was extremely self involved, and at 17-20, it seemed that there was no way out of that. Sorry if you got caught in the crossfire. And sorry if I wrote something hurtful about you. If you've figured out who's who, I apologize in advance for anything that's written. It's been long enough that I hope it won't matter.

Which leads me to my final reason for the blog. While it's all well and good to ridicule your teenage self, we should all extend a bit of sympathy for the poor bastard, too. At that age, we were so caught up in the emotional roller coaster of it all that we all acted like idiots. It's a right of passage. So while I do feel bad for the adolescent me's extreme selfishness, vanity, and drama-magnatism, I also understand it. I think this blog might wind up being more about growing up--with all the stupid, laughable and cringe-worthy pitfalls it necessitates--than about simply laughing at a high school girl's sappy musings. I realize that at 24, I've still got a long way to go... (hopefully, unless the whole 2012 thing comes true)...but it's an interesting point in my life to take a hard look back and wrestle with who I thought I was. Also, I kinda just wanted to start a blog. This is my excuse.