In the fall of my junior year of high school, I wrote on index cards most nights before going to sleep. I liked the idea of journals, but found blank notebooks intimidating so I wrote on index cards instead. With index cards, there are no expectations of something of length being completed. Each card is an isolated entry. But I keep them banded together and re-read them tonight for the first time in years. They both amused me and depressed me. Almost every card focuses on a really destructive friendship I had with this girl (I'll call her X) who I was pretty obsessed with. At the time I would never have admitted to myself that I was romantically interested in her, but from reading these cards, it seems pretty clear that that's what it was. EVERY SINGLE ONE talks about my relationship with her. The state of our friendship completely and single-handedly dictated my happiness on any given day. I thought I'd post some of the funnier/sadder moments from these cards:
10/28/02 Boy was today an interesting day. Y informed me that she is a lesbian! [...] Sometimes I even wonder whether I'm a lesbian because I haven't found the right guy yet. Not that I've found a right girl, but I'm not even attracted to any of the guys at school. I'm so absorbed in my friends. [And by "friends" here I mean "friend" which means X.]
11/1/02 Good grief. This has been absolutely the weirdest week of my life. It starts on Monday with Y telling me she's gay, and then it ends on Friday with X and Z telling me they're in a relationship. [...] If they're all lesbians, why didn't any of them fall in love with me? Why am I jealous? How did I manage to have only two best friends -- X and Y -- both of whom tell me in the same week that they're gay? Am I gay? I don't want to be! Pleeeeease! Prove I'm not! Send me a guy! Or send me a girl for that matter to prove I am. Do something. My mind is reeling. [...] Spent time with A tonight. She and B and C are the only straights in this group! Besides me theoretically.
11/2/02 Today I'm almost positive I'm not gay.
11/6/02 Tonight X came over for dinner and then we went to Borders and sat in the cafe for a while and talked. I really do love her. I think it's because they're true friends, she and Y, and I really DO love them. When I find the right man that I can talk to as honestly as I can talk to the two of them, then I will love him. Probably a different kind of love, but I don't know. This love business is confusing.
11/22/02 Do I or don't I want to move to Germany for a year? [...] I'm thinking I may want to move away anyway. I can't seem to keep up a relationship with X. Is it me or her? I think it's her. I can stay friends with other friends just fine.
11/26/02 T frightens me. I don't want to hurt his feelings. I like him well enough. Just not well enough. I should just relax. He means well.
Seems pretty clear, doesn't it? And yet I had no idea.
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