Then I felt like I was being smothered and I was up in a glare of revolving lights and beacons. Everything was going around. I was a shooting star, a comet piercing the firmament, blazing through the sky. When I finally got myself together, I was lying on the floor nude.
I still can’t believe it. What’s happening to me? I was just lying on my bed, planning my mother’s birthday, listening to records and bham!
Maybe it wasn’t a flashback. Maybe I’m schizo. That often starts in teenagers when they lose contact with reality, doesn’t it? Whatever it is, I’m really screwed up. I can’t even control my mind. The words I wrote when I was out are just squirming little lines and roads with a lot of rotten crap and symbols in between. Oh, what am I going to do? I need someone to talk to. I really and truly and desperately do. Oh God, please help me. I’m so scared and so cold and so alone. I have only you, Diary. You and me, what a pair.
I’ve done a few problems in math and even read a few pages. At least I can still read. I memorized a few lines and my mind seems to be functioning pretty well now. I did exercises too and I guess I’ve got control of my body. But I wish I had someone to talk to, someone who knows what’s happening and what will happen. But I don’t so I must forget this thing. Forget, forget, forget, and not look back. I’ll go ahead with Mom’s party. Maybe I can get Tim and Alex to take her to an early movie after school and then I can have a lovely dinner ready on the table when they get home. I’ll pretend this has all been a nightmare and forget it. Please God, let me forget it and don’t let it happen again. Please, please, please.
I kept very busy today and I didn’t think about it once. I think I’ll set my hair the way Mom likes it for tomorrow. That should make her happy.
It was a lovely birthday. Tim and Alex took Mom to see an early movie, which I think she liked even more than they did. Dad had to work late at his office and I was glad because I would have felt terribly self-conscious with him in the kitchen and me not knowing what I was doing, but everything just turned out beautifully. The chicken looked like Better Homes and Gardens’s, only better, because it smelled good too, and the asparagus was nice and tender and
the rolls were just exactly like Gran would have made. In fact, I wish she had been here, she would have been proud of me. We had a fresh fruit cup and wilted lettuce salad with bacon dressing, it was a little too wilted, in fact much too wilted, but everyone pretended they didn’t notice and Daddy teased me and said he wouldn’t be surprised if I didn’t make some young man a good wife someday. I hope he didn’t notice the tears in my eyes, because I so much want to do just that!
For dessert we just had fresh peach ice cream with frozen peaches over it and the whole thing was really pretty great, particularly since it was the first complete meal I ever cooked by myself. Alex made Mom a little ceramic candy dish shaped like her hand. It is really lovely, and all the more lovely because, with the help of only her Girl Scout teacher, she had it fired and everything without Mom even knowing. I used to be kind of jealous of Alex and I guess had a lot of hostility toward her even though I loved her. But now things are different. I really feel something new and wonderful and exciting is beginning to grow within me. Maybe that’s the way people get extra love to cover every child that’s born?
Oh, I do hope that someday someone will want to marry me.
I got up really early this morning so I could take a long leisurely bath before Tim and Alex start pounding on the bathroom door. It was great. I love taking my time and enjoying life. After I shaved my legs and underarms, I really looked at my body critically for the first time in my life. It’s a nice body but a little small through the bust. I wonder what would happen if I exercised. But then, I guess I’m afraid that I’d wind up looking like a jersey cow. I’m glad I’m a girl. I even like having my periods. I guess I never wanted to be a boy. A lot of girls do wish they were boys, but not me. It’s hard to believe that at one point I was so screwed up I didn’t know what I was. Oh, I wish I could wipe away all that rotten past. I know Gramps is right. I must forgive and forget but I just can’t. I simply can’t! When I’m having the very nicest thoughts, the black ugly past comes flooding in like a nightmare. And it’s ruined my whole day already.
Guess what? Your genius friend got everything right on her English exam today. I know I did because it was so easy and I think I did almost as well in math. I might have missed two or three, but I know it couldn’t have been more than that. Isn’t that exciting?
Cripes! It’s started again! I met Jan downtown and she asked me to a “party” tonight. None of the kids think I’m really going to stay off, because most of those who’ve been busted before are just being more careful and discreet. When I told Jan, “No, thanks,” she just smiled! It scared me to death. She didn’t say anything at all. She just smiled at me like, “We know you’ll be back.” Oh, I hope not. I really hope not.
George just says “hi” to me in the coldest way. It’s completely obvious that he’s really straight and doesn’t want to be connected in any way with a doper. All the kids at school pretty much know who’s on and who’s off and I want to get in with the square kids, but I don’t see how I’m going to do it with my reputation hanging over me. I couldn’t tell Mom and Dad this, but I really would like to go out on dates. I don’t mean with the grass gang, but with the nice kids. I’d like to have a boy put his arm around me in a movie. But how could I ever have that with one of the heads? Everyone knows that sex and shit[2] go together, and as far as I’m concerned they are a bunch of social lepers—and that’s the way the straight kids feel too.
The only sad thing is that I’m still classed as one of them, and I guess I always will be! It’s strange how much sex I’ve had and yet I don’t feel as though I’ve had any. I still want somebody to be nice and just kiss me goodnight at the door. That’s a laugh! Oh Diary, forgive me. I am trying so hard to have a positive outlook, but I can’t. I can’t. You’re the only one I can really open my soul to. I want to go back and blot out everything and start over. But inside I’m old and hard and I’m probably responsible for I don’t know how many junior high and grade school kids getting hung up, and they probably have turned around and hung up other kids. How can God ever forgive me? Why would He want to?
I guess I’d better go take a bath before my parents hear these stupid-assed, crazy sobs which I can no longer control.
Thanks for listening.
The kids have really started hassling me. Twice today Jan banged into me in the hall and called me Nancy Nice and Mary Pure. But I’ve had it. I really have had it this time and if I begin to feel too low, I’m just going to ask Mom and Dad to transfer me to another school. But the problem is where could I go that somebody would not find out about me? And how could I tell Mom and Dad everything so they’d let me change schools? Oh, I really don’t know what I’m going to do. I’ve even started praying every night like I used to when I was little, but now I’m not just saying words, I’m begging. I’m pleading.