Mom and Dad came to visit again today and they brought me a ten page letter from Joel. Mom wanted me to read it right away but I wanted to wait until I was alone. It’s very special to me and I really don’t want to share it with anybody but you. Besides I think I’m a little scared because Dad told Joel the truth about me, at least as much as he knows. So I think I’ll wait until later to open it.
Dad also said that he finally got Jan to sign an affidavit saying that I wasn’t pushing at the school. Now both she and Dad are trying to get Marcie to retract her statement. Dad says if that happens he’s sure he can get me out of here in no time.
I’m afraid to hope but I can’t help it, and the idea of hoping in this most hopeless of all places makes me want to cry.
Joel’s letter was great. I was really afraid to read it but now I’m happy that I did. He is the most warm, compassionate, forgiving, loving, most understanding person in the world, and I can’t wait for fall when we can be together again. I know I won’t have any more drug problems, but I’m such a boob, such an immature, childish, impractical, improbable wishy-washy that I’m really going to have to work to make Joel proud of me. Oh, I wish he were here right now and I wish I were strong like the rest of my family. I wish, I wish, I wish.
Oh, glorious, marvelous, wonderful, incredible, fantastic day! Day with birds and singing and sunshine and flowers! I can’t tell you how happy I am. I’m getting out of here! I’m going HOME! All the papers will be signed today and Dad and Mom will come and get me tomorrow. Oh, lifetime away tomorrow. I feel like screaming with joy but that would probably make them come and lock me up again. Actually I’m not being fair to this place. As awful as it is, it’s better than detention school. Kay said that if she had been sent to DT[4] she would have learned every rotten trick in the book. Here, she sticks to the ones she already knows. I guess that’s pretty true with all of us.
I can’t believe I’m really going home. Somebody up there must be pulling for me. Probably dear old Gramps.
I couldn’t sleep, so I woke up and began thinking about Babbie. I really feel guilty that I’m going and she’s staying. Maybe when I’m really strong and the nightmare of my life fades a little, we can come back and get her. But I guess that’s just being childish. Life doesn’t really happen that way, which is too bad. But I can’t think about it anymore.
At last, finally and forever, I’m home. Tim and Alex were so glad to see me that I really felt rotten for having messed up so badly all these months. Then when Happiness came up and licked my face and hands, I thought Mother was going to cry and I was just glad that Gran and Gramps aren’t alive to see what’s happened.
I guess Dad knew how I felt, because he was so loving and dear. Dear, dear Dad, he always knows. And after we had all talked for a while, he suggested that I go up and get some’s|eep which was really great because I wanted to be completely alone in my own room with my own lovely curtains and my own wallpaper and my own bed and feel my own house all around me with my beautiful, loving family downstairs. I’m so very, very grateful that they don’t hate me, because in a lot of ways I hate myself.
Dear Diary,
It’s 2 A.M. and I’ve just had the sweetest feeling I’ve ever had in my life. I tried to pray again. Actually I was just trying to thank God for getting me out of there and bringing me home but then I started to think about Jan and Marcie and for the first time I really wanted God to help them too. I really wanted them to get completely well and not to have to end up in a mental hospital. Oh, please God, I hope they do get well. Please help them and help me too.
Dad has a chance to go back East for two weeks to finish a lecture course, isn’t that marvelous? Of course it isn’t marvelous for Dr. ______ who has had a heart attack, and I really hope he gets better; but anyway, Daddy is going to fill in for him at the last minute, and we’re all going to stay in their gorgeous house and everything, isn’t that great?
They only had one double room left in the motel so Alex and I have one bed and Mom and Daddy have the other and Tim has to sleep on the floor because they don’t even have any more cots left. He doesn’t mind, though—he says it’s like camping out. We’re drawing lots to see who gets to use the bathroom first. I was last, but that’s okay because I wanted to write in you. Everything would be absolutely perfect if only Joel were here. He is the only good thing missing in our lives, but I guess that would be a little messy, all sharing the same room and bath and us not even married. It might be even more embarrassing if we were—but I won’t even let myself think about that. There will absolutely be no more sex in my life until after I have taken a man for better or for worse until death do us part, and then I even think we’ll still be together. I just simply can’t imagine a just God making people who love each other be single after they get to Heaven. Gran and Gramps and Mom and Dad could never possibly be happy unless they were together. I’m sure Gran died because she just couldn’t bear being separated. There wasn’t a single thing wrong with her except that she didn’t want to go on without Gramps.
I wonder if Mom ever even kissed another man besides Dad. Oh, I’m sure she did, because Dad sometimes teases her about Humphrey, but I know she wasn’t having sex with Humphrey. I don’t think many girls did things like that when Mom and Gran were young. I wish things were still like that. I think it would be much easier to be a virgin, marry someone and then find out what life is all about. I wonder how it will be for me? It might be great because I’m practically a virgin in the sense that I’ve never had sex except when I’ve been stoned and I’m sure without drugs I’ll be scared out of my mind. I just hope I can forget everything that’s happened when I finally get married to someone I love. That’s a nice secure thought, isn’t it? Going to bed with someone you love.
It’s my turn in the bathroom so I gotta go.
See ya.
Well, we’re settled. Daddy starts teaching today, and this afternoon we’re going to take a look at the town. It was dark when we drove in, but this neighborhood is incredible, everything is all lush and green and fragrant. I’m so happy we’re here. We’re all exhausted though because yesterday and the night before Mom and Dad took turns driving straight through. Two days and one night of driving put us all a little on edge, and while it was fun and interesting to see parts of the country we’re still glad to be settled. Daddy says we’ll take longer to go home and maybe even go by way of Chicago, and stop to see Joel. Wouldn’t that be wonderful!!! I’m afraid to even uncross my fingers to eat or write.
Imagine me at a university tea! And even more startling, imagine me liking it even though it was a little stuffy. I must be growing up.
See ya.
Well, there will be no more exploring for wonder woman! Apparently I walked into a giant batch of poison ivy yesterday and really did it to myself. There isn’t too much of it around here, but wouldn’t you know who’d find it!
I’m swollen and red and itching all over, and my eyes are puffed up and almost closed and I really look great. The doctor came and gave me a shot, but he doesn’t sound too encouraging. Yuck!
I didn’t know P.I. was so contagious, but now Alex has gotten it off my clothes or something. She isn’t as bad as I am, but she’s still itchy and uncomfortable. Some people from the university came to find out where I’d run across the clump so they could go out and kill it, but I don’t even know what it looks like.