As I checked boxes and bags to see what needed to be packed and what had to be discarded, I came across random stuff I hadn’t seen in years, including my only attempt at keeping a diary – a notebook I’d covered with pink and green ribbon and marked *Private. Do not open*.
Written when I was 16, reading the 50 odd pages that I’d managed to fill was, well, interesting to say the least. And when I say interesting, I mean a combination of embarrassment, oh-yeah-that-happened-moments and a lot of cringing. Ok. It was a little funny also. But mostly because I sounded like people had butterflies for souls and daisies for dreams (and by people I mean the boys I was writing about. What? I was 16).
But life was so simple. Or so it seems now. All I had to worry about was Boy 1 not calling me or Boy 2 sending me an email when least expected. There was also Boy 3, but except for his name that features a couple of times in the diary, I have no memory of who he was. And then there snippets about the first exams I had in college, the disturbed mental condition of the new friend I’d made, the deal my mum was cutting with me (lose 10kgs for ICQ. Yes. ICQ. It was that long ago), school reunions and meeting old friends (and commenting on how much some people had changed, mostly boys and the level of obnoxiousness), cousins getting engaged to the wrong people, and family vacations.
So for a quarter of an hour today morning, I was back to being an innocent teenager, discovering new experiences, people and feelings for the first time. And while I quite enjoyed reliving some of what I’d recorded more than a decade earlier, I’m *so* glad I’m not 16 anymore. Imagine having to lose those 10 kgs all over again!
