recollections and rants

To anyone who doesn't remember what they had for breakfast, much less where they were a year ago, I recommend starting a journal. But if you're the sort who is easily embarrassed, critical, or if you have any heavy objects near your head, I'd recommend starting anything but a journal. Unfortunately for me, I fall into both categories. Yet a stack of recollections and rants still lies underneath my bed, just waiting to be ridiculed. I think my sixteen year old self watched far too many cliches, since she bemoaned being an "empty shell" every other day.
Yesterday was one of those days where I'm snuggled up in my covers and "text moose-aging" sweats by 9:00p.m. It's what I call Thursday nights. And while I have a huge pile of books to be read, thought about, and re-read, it was my old journals that I dove for, unaware that past idiocy makes for less interesting stories in written form. Unless, of course, you're Anne Lamott.
I read about what my best friend has coined "the dark ages," in which I learned to sword fight and pretended to know how to ski, all for a boy, who I resolved to completely ignore at least twenty times. The wish to be in college right now swept through the pages, only to be followed by "oh crap. College is soon." From freshman to senior year, I was always astonished how, the older I got, the less I knew. It also seemed as the years progressed, my hair got increasingly less annoying.
Throughout my rants, I noticed a pattern that I would make the positive events of the day a side note. I'd brush across the fact that I had a lovely dance class, or that I laughed so hard until I cried with friends, but then I'd go on to say "here's why my life still sucks." And two and a half pages of suckery because--gasp--he didn't say hi, makes me want to throw my notebooks across the room. So with the embarrassment of putting a negative spin on a neutral life, comes the realization that the little things do have meaning, and they can add up to be powerful. I may remember the time I completely bombed an English test, but I also remember the insane sleepovers with friends where we started our running joke of being "trunk" (drunk off of tiredness). I complained that my brother hated my guts, but in between journal entries we would make up languages and plan out entire worlds in which cats had all the power. My hatred of growing attached to people only amounted to half the joy when I was with them, creating recollections of the small things.