Censored; aka Dear Departed Diary

I've just been out in our shed and found my Hello Kitty diary from when I was little. I spent about a half hour pouring over the pages, trying to bring back all the memories.

The inner page reads, "To M., with Love to my Little Skipper*. You will always be my little sister. I still have my Hello Kitty Diary, hope you will keep yours till your married + have your kids. Love you lots, Cyndi M." (Note: Spelling and punctuation intact) The facing page reads (my writing) "I got this on March 23rd, 1990. I was given it by Cyndi M, when she was over." Specific yet confusing, really not much has changed in my writing the past seventeen years.
*One of my many absurd nicknames as a kid. Yes, there was a reason. No, I don't skip around everywhere anymore.

Most of the inside is blank. There are a huge number of pages ripped out, and what remains are a few vague entries. I literally had to tear away parts of my childhood that I would savor and remember today, in order to avoid potentially getting in trouble, for what I have no idea. In my quest for privacy in my securely locked diary, I went as far as to write this as the third entry:

(3-24-90) "In this diary, I'm not going to have any "juicy parts, and I'm not going to list anyone's name, only their enitials or the very obious hints about them, or I'm going to say, "this person I know, her in Mrs. Fisher's class is sooo cute' or somthing like that. But any stuff that's not personal will list full names. PS I didn't promise to write every day, but as often as I can." I also remember writing something to/about my sisters: "If Erin and Amy ever read this, they'll find out about how they will have to get glasses and braces and zits when they get big".

I had multiple, moving hiding spots for the little book and its key, and only wrote in it while alone. I was so aware of the fact that my mom might some day find it, decipher the confusing entries and get mad at me for... something, that I rarely wrote. One of the entries seems both funny and telling.

(4/30/90) "Well, sorry about not writing, but the Stumbah kids* were a handful! (I like all little kids, nearly! (I did laundry for a while today. It's so much fun to be a director of a play! (Or at least, part of one) Wheneverr anyone has a question or problem, to actully be in charge!** Well, I've gotta go!"
*These "kids" are now twenty-four and twenty years old, by my best guess. Their parents live around the corner from mine, in Colorado.
**The "being in charge"/"director of a play" part? So reminds me of my job!

There's a mournful three-page entry about the parakeet I cared for dying. Dickie (not my choice of name) was a little blue guy that a friend of ours purchased for her son Andre, who'd been in a motorcycle accident about a year before. (See bottom) Mostly, its sad because I remember the incident - but not the ones I ripped out. I was far too afraid of the repercussions of writing my feelings instead of repressing them. When I came back inside, I looked at S. and said,
"This is the reason that I would never, ever, invade our (hypothetical) kids' policy. This put me off writing for years - it truly scarred the trust I had in my parents' trust in me and the feeling I had that I could come to them if I had a real problem." That and the fact that I'm sure kids don't keep diaries anymore - they're all on MySpace.

In a sort of twenty-first century, backwards way, blogging (thus far) feels like a bit of redemption for all of that. No, I don't pour out every little feeling I have onto the page, but I'm also not in fear of being spanked, lectured, cross-examined and humiliated.... without my consent. I think part of one of the entries sums things up - Just give me a soapbox to stand on:
(11/21/90) "It's my life, and I'll take the good and the crappy, I guess. The funny thing is, when I get good and mad, I'm going to SPEW, like an overflowing POT! HA HA! HA!"

Editors' note: Like this entry: Wait till I post some of my craptacular old poetry next week.
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Sad Accident Story: He'd had a helmet on, hadn't been speeding, the guy just didn't see him. Andre's parents poured years and thousands of dollars into various therapies, some cheap like Dickie, and others costly. None of them made a difference - he's S. age or older, almost forty years old. Andre was around twenty at the time of the accident, and he's been tube-fed, diapered, excercised and tended to every day since that one. Last year his poor mother passed away, leaving his dad to care for his only child alone. Honestly, he is the reason I believe in two things: 1) Under no circumstances is my husband getting a motorcycle or related devices
2) Allowing people in a persistent vegatative state pass away comfortably. It truly would have been better if we could remember Andre fondly instead of wincing and thinking, "Please, please let me die if I get in a bad accident."