I'd seen these kids at the high school next door smoking cigarettes (back then, smoking was still considered cool and you only had to be 16 to buy) and they looked sooooo mature to me so I wanted to try it. There was no way I'd even think about being brave enough to smoke a whole cigarette myself so I fished some of my mom's nearly non-existent, half crumpled stubs from the living room ash tray and snuck them into a coat pocket in the back of my bedroom closet.
Fact: At that time, I had an irrational fear of fire. I mean, I'm still not a huge fan but I was terrified to be anywhere near anyone who played with matches, kids who liked slowly passing their index finger through a flame scared the crap out of me, and, after seeing the tiny orange circle of my mother's cigarette glowing as she woke up for a quick smoke at 2am, I was convinced she was going to fall asleep with a lighted cigarette in hand one night and we'd all go up in flames. Nevertheless, I was determined. So one Saturday, I stole one of my mother's many lighters, grabbed my stash from the closet and ran like a bat out of hell to the neighborhood grade school. I skulked around to a side entrance - one of those doors that was blocked off by a rolling two-tiered rack of chairs so, on the off chance that someone was inside, they couldn't see what I was doing on the outside. Also, there was no grass - only concrete and bricks - so I wasn't quite so afraid that, if I dropped the lighter, I'd catch on fire. I never claimed that my fear was rational! Anyway. I tried smoking. Meh. I didn't love it and I didn't hate it. It didn't make me cough but I thought "ah well. okay, now I've done it," and I was keenly aware that I really didn't look any older or cooler by trying it.
Something else happened within that time frame: a boy discovered me. Now, I'm reasonably certain he wasn't the first one but this particular boy did happen to be the first one to overtly let me know. My family had driven to Oak Park, Illinois to spend the weekend with a college friend of my dad's and, bored to tears, I'd gone outside to walk up and down the back alley. Now, I don't remember how it all happened but I do remember the boy in vivid detail: his name was Bobby Woolf, he was slightly older, quite a bit taller, and he had the strangest green eyes I'd ever seen. Plus, he was a city kid which, to my way of thinking did not hurt his image one bit. We talked and walked around a while and then, somehow or another, I remember that we were standing in a garage somewhere. I'd never kissed a boy before but I sure knew I wanted this one to kiss me and did he ever. It was pure heaven. Well. We kissed and kissed for what seemed like days. I let him feel under my shirt and I refused to let him unzip my pants (don't get me wrong; I had no idea that touching me up there would make me feel it down there but there was a limit to my willingness to explore that particular urge, no matter how great my curiosity). Eventually, our parents called us in and we stole a few more, quick kisses before returning to our respective families.
That was more or less the end of those two experiences. Or at least it would have been - except for one thing. I kept a diary at the time. I can't remember what was on the cover of the actual journal but I kept it in a cream coloured box, the lid on which I'd doodled with a ball point pen in giant letters:
MY DIARY - KEEP OUT
I then scratched little warnings and death threats on every bare spot of the cover. This was mine and mine alone. It was my own little world where I could pour out my agonies, my dreams and do a little embellishing of my real life in private. So naturally I wrote about my foray into smoking. Only I made it fabulous and, of course, I was cool. In my diary, I'd done this with a group of friends. It was great and I intended to keep right on doing it - to hell with what my parents or any other grown ups thought. In my diary, I let Bobby Woolf put his hands down my pants and I fantasized about what that must be like in very, very vivid detail. More than once, I think. hah!
And... in my diary is where my mother read all of these private little thoughts and fantasies (and dozens more that I haven't shared here with you, whoever you are) when she found it as she was going through my desk drawers one day. I came home from school that afternoon to an ominously quiet house. My mother called me downstairs to the family room. As I walked in, I saw her sitting on the couch in her kaftan wearing sunglasses, which I thought was odd, considering we were in the basement. She sat staring wordlessly at me for the longest time (never a good sign), finally breaking the silence by asking me how long I'd been smoking. My face turned ashen. I tried to deny but she persisted in a firm, commanding voice: "I. Said. How. LONG. Have you. Been. SMOKING? DO NOT LIE TO ME BECAUSE I KNOW THE TRUTH." I was mortified. I meekly tried to tell her about my single experiment but, after calling me a lying little bitch, she pushed past it and moved on to the Bobby Woolf incident. In excruciating detail. And, while I'd bragged and lied about my attempt at smoking to my friends at school, I had told absolutely NO ONE about Bobby Woolf so, in that moment, I knew where she'd gotten her information from.
She then slowly removed her sunglasses to reveal her eyes, swollen and red. She told me that they were nearly infected from the crying she'd done that day and that it was all my fault. The next four hours of tears and lectures were pure torture. Where had she gone wrong with me? With all that she and my father had done for me, this was how I repaid them? I just wanted to die. I was ashamed. Embarrassed. And worst of all, I'd done it to myself by writing the words down on paper. If I hadn't written them, she would never have read them. After that, any thoughts of keeping a journal went right out the window. No WAY was I going to put myself through that again.
You know what, whoever you are? The funny thing is, I no longer have anything to hide. No secrets. Plenty of flaws, but no secrets at all. And yet, this is still something I struggle with - being committed to keeping a journal. And this is why this blog was created. I heard a line in a movie today. I only mention it because I think it's relevant to so many areas in my life right now so I think I'm going to end today's entry by sharing it with you. Here it is:
I then scratched little warnings and death threats on every bare spot of the cover. This was mine and mine alone. It was my own little world where I could pour out my agonies, my dreams and do a little embellishing of my real life in private. So naturally I wrote about my foray into smoking. Only I made it fabulous and, of course, I was cool. In my diary, I'd done this with a group of friends. It was great and I intended to keep right on doing it - to hell with what my parents or any other grown ups thought. In my diary, I let Bobby Woolf put his hands down my pants and I fantasized about what that must be like in very, very vivid detail. More than once, I think. hah!
And... in my diary is where my mother read all of these private little thoughts and fantasies (and dozens more that I haven't shared here with you, whoever you are) when she found it as she was going through my desk drawers one day. I came home from school that afternoon to an ominously quiet house. My mother called me downstairs to the family room. As I walked in, I saw her sitting on the couch in her kaftan wearing sunglasses, which I thought was odd, considering we were in the basement. She sat staring wordlessly at me for the longest time (never a good sign), finally breaking the silence by asking me how long I'd been smoking. My face turned ashen. I tried to deny but she persisted in a firm, commanding voice: "I. Said. How. LONG. Have you. Been. SMOKING? DO NOT LIE TO ME BECAUSE I KNOW THE TRUTH." I was mortified. I meekly tried to tell her about my single experiment but, after calling me a lying little bitch, she pushed past it and moved on to the Bobby Woolf incident. In excruciating detail. And, while I'd bragged and lied about my attempt at smoking to my friends at school, I had told absolutely NO ONE about Bobby Woolf so, in that moment, I knew where she'd gotten her information from.
She then slowly removed her sunglasses to reveal her eyes, swollen and red. She told me that they were nearly infected from the crying she'd done that day and that it was all my fault. The next four hours of tears and lectures were pure torture. Where had she gone wrong with me? With all that she and my father had done for me, this was how I repaid them? I just wanted to die. I was ashamed. Embarrassed. And worst of all, I'd done it to myself by writing the words down on paper. If I hadn't written them, she would never have read them. After that, any thoughts of keeping a journal went right out the window. No WAY was I going to put myself through that again.
You know what, whoever you are? The funny thing is, I no longer have anything to hide. No secrets. Plenty of flaws, but no secrets at all. And yet, this is still something I struggle with - being committed to keeping a journal. And this is why this blog was created. I heard a line in a movie today. I only mention it because I think it's relevant to so many areas in my life right now so I think I'm going to end today's entry by sharing it with you. Here it is:
No comments:
Post a Comment