Dear Journal, I'm Sorry

I kept a journal in middle school. In fact, it was after I became obsessed with the cartoon "Doug" that I began the habit. I don't know if they had "Doug" while you were growing up, but in my day, it was quite popular. I would scribble in it nightly before I went to sleep, sometimes with fury if the day's events had not pleased me, other times with mundane brevity if what had passed had been an uneventful twenty-four hours. Nevertheless, I dumped every last secret, wish, and desire of my blooming pubescent mind into that thin sky blue notebook (wide rule) - my love for the girl with black shoulder length hair, soda-can size glasses, and a seductive mole beneath the dimple of her right cheek, my hatred for the more popular guys with better looks with whom she hung out, and my vow of vindication to all the gods in the sky that I would one day be triumphant - Now, over what I needed to triumph, I'm sure I had no idea, but nevertheless, a vow is a vow. Unless, that is, you burn the notebook on which that vow is physically written, which is what I did four years later during an fit of great embarrassment followed by anxious distress.

It was sometime during the summer of my junior year of high school. I had found the notebook hidden in a bottom drawer of my desk while I was cleaning my room. Naturally, I had forgotten all about the journal that I've failed to write in since eighth grade. But upon noticing the warning sign on the front cover that read "DO NOT READ!", (I didn't have one of those nice little locks, so a verbal deterrent was my only means of protection from predatory eyes.) I knew immediately what the sky blue covers contained. There are certain images in life whose sight you can never forget, and prominent amongst these are items or persons that can cause you to lose a great deal of face. I flipped slowly through the notebook, reading each entry with great scrutiny, attempting to decipher the verbal encryptions laid out by my middle school self. It's amazing how much a child can change in just four short years. By the time I had finished the entire notebook, I was so overtaken by shame and embarrassment that I could no longer bear the existence of my former self, much less the very solid proof that laid in my hands. For me, there could be only one solution. The notebook must be destroyed. Now, I can tell you, even in my young age, I was fully cognizant of the gravity of these actions. I was obliterating literal proof of my life. I was denying the existence of a part of myself. I would never again be able to suffer through that sense of great hilarity coupled with cringing shame. But alas, it was too much. I could not live with the oh-so-naïve thoughts of my past, much less their physical manifestations decipherable to anyone who came across this great bane of my life.

I walked out into the courtyard of the apartment complex with a box of matches and the notebook in my right hand. It must have been a hot summer day, for I remember the t-shirt sticking to my back; boring too, which must explain why I was cleaning. I squatted down on the gravel pavement, knees bent and pointed toward the sky like a frog on the verge of leaping. With the notebook lying prostrate before me, I stared at it for a few seconds, thinking it funny that the Japanese characters on the cover ("Nottoboku" it read in white katakana characters) seemed all too aware of its impending execution. I struck the match with my right hand, careful to protect it from any vagrant breezes, and set the tip of the flame to the lower right corner of my journal. I remember it catching fire more easily than I had anticipated, as if I had expected my life to put up more of a fight in the face of such reckless self-destruction. It did not.