It's looking a bit worn. A corner of the blue cover is bent, the silver foil worn off the upper left corner from years of holding the book in my hand as I wrote. The silver unicorn (gawd, that looks dated now!) is splotchy and faded.
Inside lies my life from March 8, 1984 (Thursday, before dinner) to August 1, 1987 (past midnight)--years that encompass college, co-op jobs in Florida, a quarter in London, my first Rush concert, an incredible number of crushes, and my first-and-only serious romance--finally--with Wayne. Reading back through it now, I am caught up again in the melodrama I made of my life then, as well as my attempts to find deeper meaning in my life. I'm also surprised to see a theme running through the journal entries: a craving for touch--for hugs, backrubs, the confidence to touch those I care for and to allow them to touch me. I was the original late bloomer.
3/8/84, before dinner
I'm just being bothered by my usual problems--the ones that have confronted me for the past 7-8 years or so. Why am I left out of the dating game? (Because I know it's a game? Doubt it.) Why can't life be a bit more fair? Will I ever go out (more than once in a row) with one guy?" "What is wrong with me? Why do I have this obsession with getting a boyfriend? I shouldn't--I know there are more important things in life--but all all the songs on the radio sing about is love in one form or another. Male/Female relationships, at least. I want to reach out, but I don't know how and what I've done is always ignored/rebuffed (my imagination? maybe) or misinterpreted.
3/13/84, 10:25 pm
I really don't understand. Or maybe I understand, but I don't want to face it. Scott called me for Physics homework and stuff, and came over to get them. He hasn't left--Wendy came home. I feel a bit used--like the only reasons I'm worth talking to is because I got a B in Physics 131 and because I'm Wendy's roommate. I hope he's enjoying his backrub.
I really need a hug right now--a good, bonecrunching, long bear hug. I need someone to hold me and not say anything--just hold me for as long as I need. I guess I'll just have to imagine it. Why do I feel so hurt? Don't answer--I know. I'm looking so hard for a "boyfriend" that I try to romanticize every relationship I have with every guy I know--Rick, Dave, Scott--none of them are safe from me. It hurts to be passed over, too--for someone as practically perfect in so many ways as Wendy doesn't help any. What's the matter with me--that everything I do ends up wrong? Am I looking too hard? How do I stop looking? Will that help? I don't know.
3/14/84, 10:22 pm
I wish there was something between Scott and me besides Physics. Obviously not.
Am I just by nature not very demonstrative in public? I love hugs (not that I get them), though. Should I try to overcome this discomfort? I don't know. I don't know anything. I am being overwhelmed by my own ignorance. Just let me get through the next few days, please. Then I'll have a whole new quarter to mess up in. I feel insecure. I need a hug and a backrub.
5/25/84, 4:05 pm
I'm slowly coming down from the clouds--classes, homework, and programs help immensely. He came! I'm practically caught up on hugs now! Even got a backrub. Maybe that's why I wanted a hug and a backrub last quarter--I was actually wanting (?) Neal.
Something I liked, but I also felt uncomfortable with, was after trying to vote in Chris' former labor law class, we walked back to the car arm in arm--which really felt weird because Neal and I were the only two doing that. I almost felt like I was playing "Lori & Steve" or something. I guess I'm just not that much of a "couple" person. When I'm with a group, I want to be an individual in the group, not half of a couple w/in the group.
Neal was...geez, how do I explain? My longest crush, my first love, in a way. An on-again, off-again friend that flirted with more, then disappeared for months at a time. I hung on to the idea of him as a boyfriend for far longer than anyone would expect, given the rare crumbs of contact between us. Results: a bunch of letters over two or three years, two kisses, one visit, a bunch of hugs. I find I'm still ambivalent about him.
7/15/84, 1:35 am
Is this envy of every warmly physical relationship (Scott & Wendy, Dave & Chris, etc.) closely related to my tendency to draw back from touching people accidentally? I seem to be very careful of my (and other people's) personal space--why do I long for, yet shy away from, that very thing--a sort of intersection between two spaces--mine and people--guys, especially--I feel close to and am attracted to and just like?
8/29/84, 9:15 pm
As I look back on the summer, these are the things (words, memories, places, ideas) that pop out at me:
Darkroom
Rush
Creativity
Individual
Solitude
I've been appreciating Ellen Burstyn's observation about how unlonely being alone can be. I've been really appreciating solitude lately--being on my own and independent.
I don't know how much having my own room brought this private mood on, or how much my tape player helped, since it tends to isolate the listener, or how much was just a need to recharge after the last year or so. It's funny--Mom always worried about me when I withdrew, but that seems to be where I'm happiest.
I spent the summer of 1984 at school, taking the first of many art classes (beginning drawing and black and white photography), enjoying the diminished population of San Luis Obispo without hordes of students, attempting to get in shape, and reveling in solitude. That fall I worked for IBM in Boca Raton, Florida on a co-op assignment--my first extended period away from California.
4/28/85, 10:57
I wish I knew where I stood with Neal. Right now, I feel guilty/defiant when I go out w/Bob (from ACM), [went out once--ed.] yet I'm not sure why. Rationally, I don't see Neal more than once every six months or so, so the only logical procedure would be to go out with other guys. However, a) I never have been one who could be happily interested in more than one at a time, and b) a day has yet to go by that I haven't thought of Neal at least once.
Neal, you are so perfect to me in so many ways, I'm willing to wait forever until you call, it seems. Why can't it be earlier? I feel so unattached and attached--pulled by something I'm not sure is really there.
It was probably around this time that I consciously gave up on Neal. That summer, I returned to Florida and spent the summer as a party girl, out dancing whenever possible with some co-op friends I made there, working hard to forget Neal through a crush on someone else unattainable.
7/11/86, 8:50 am
Depression is weird. When it hits (for me it's usually over feeling unloved & spinsterish), I can't do anything--I go catatonic. This spring [in London] I sat on my bed, imprisoned, almost. My mind kept saying, 'Snap out of it!' but I wouldn't/couldn't snap. I had an image after I got up to go to class of a painting to do: a transparent shell of the head of a girl, and inside, a figure stands, huddled…symbolizing how deep within myself I was, while that shell performed automatic tasks.
I found a list of characteristics I see in myself--from when I was depressed. Here it is:
moody
dreamer
slightly suicidal
creative
intuitive
egotistic
selfish
introspective
loyal
romantic
cynical
disorderly
intellectual
sensitive
logical
loner
unpractical
inhibited
procrastinator
idealistic
8/10/86, 10:40 pm
Writing letters is like making olive oil--neither improves with additional pressings of the same olives (or expressings of the same events and epiphanies).
10/26/86, 11:38 pm
I was just thinking about who the true friends are that I treasure so. The two that immediately pop into my head are Anna and Wayne. Other people I have to think about. I don't share easily with anyone. Sometimes [friendship] seems more due to circumstances than anything else--Debbie, for instance, or Grant. A lot of my friends I've lost track of. Karen and I used to be so close--in writing, at least. Neal…but I can't talk to him now. I can't get by the wall I put up. Why don't I keep old friends better than I do? Making friends isn't the problem--I just tend to cut ties when I leave a stage in my life so completely, I even forget who my friends are.
It was about this point when, after knowing Wayne since he came to Poly in '83, we actually started going out and kissing and stuff. Very odd, in a way, for me--almost as if nobody, including me, actually thought I'd ever have a boyfriend. I was a year away from graduation.
11/11/86, 11:48 pm
I feel like I've been missing the sense of touch for a long time--I see, hear, taste, and smell, but would not allow myself the liberty of touching someone. Now, I feel much freer and more at ease with touching my friends--not only Wayne, but Julie and Paul and Anna and even Mitch S. from CSc/ACM.
5/9/87, 7:44 pm
The retreat was about questions--I went on it not thinking I had any, then they erupted. Most were based on the future--career-wise, personal-wise, and how the two correlated. I don't want to lose Wayne when I graduate, but I don't want to put my career on hold or settle for less than I could have just to stay close to him. I've always looked down on that attitude--the value system that places the man's life above the woman's. Wayne and I talked about this a bit a couple of days ago--he's wondering about the future, too. He concluded, and I'm afraid I have to, also, that there's nothing he can do about it now. What will happen, will happen. It's good to know he feels the same about me and doesn't want to lose me, either.
So, why did I dig up all this stuff? Mostly because unlike Nautica, I do remember obsessing a bit (okay, in certain circumstances, a lot!) about guys and depression in college. And I suppose that since I'm now back in college, it's interesting to compare my life then with the way it is now. Some of the entries even echoed the book I just finished (won't Tallulah be proud), High Fidelity, though minus all the sex (since for the most part, my college life was minus all the sex!). Then there's the reunion planned for Memorial Day weekend that we're going to try to attend in SLOtown. I guess I'm just feeling bloody nostalgic about it all.
Cheryl
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