rereading my diary

I reread my diaries, my letters, my journals now that I’m back in my hometown. It is perplexing to believe you have spent time away becoming someone else, only to find that you have done nothing but-

as a 22 year old, I feel like I’m in constant motion. I am always on the brink of discovering myself; things I love seem to change all the time. Flavours I once preferred have twisted themselves into bites I won’t have again, colours I swore I’d never wear are all I seem to be surrounded with.

I moved when I was 20, from one big city to another, alone. I didn’t think it was scary, I was excited to pretend I was someone else - someone who was maybe more put together, older, more mature, more. Muchier, as the Mad Hatter puts it to Alice.

and yet, with all the time that has passed since then, I find myself rediscovering things I have always, always known.

[above: pic of me two summers ago. my desk, featuring my stack of diaries, ‘amsterdam’ by Ian McEwan, torn pages, a finished cup of coffee, my guitar, a mug of sculpting tools, and my third ever sculpture. also a totoro stuffie on my shelf.]

I reread my diaries, my letters, my journals now that I’m back in my hometown. It is perplexing to believe you have spent time away becoming someone else, only to find that you have done nothing but grow into the shoes you’ve been writing about for years.

Taken aback by my own documentation of how me I am, I flicked through pages and pages of prose. Golden, shell-studded, diplomatic. Lots of bite. Lots of strange understanding for myself and the future versions of me I couldn’t have known I would be; I’d think back to myself as a 15, 16 year old and think oh, she was so caught up in the emotion of it all - only to reread my careful, constructed words. Phlegmatic and tempered.

and she always loved the beach.

In the two years I’ve spent so far, constructing myself outside of the net of my family and home, I’ve hit many walls wondering what is it I’m supposed to do? What am I supposed to do, as this new mature version of myself, when I’ve stubbed my toe after a long day where nothing has gone right? What am I supposed to do, when I tear a hole in my favourite dress?

Is it more ‘me’ to scream and kick the door, is it more ‘me’ to try stitch a star over that torn fabric?

Rereading my diaries, my letters, my journals. My habits, ones I believed I’d coaxed out of months of weathering the English winter and fickle summer, light up in front of me as things I have been doing since I was 13. Oh, and the praise I get…. the praise I get for doing the same things that little girl did, all by herself, almost a decade ago, makes me feel like maybe I have built someone new on these bones.

I am 22 now. 23 in February. There is nothing new. refined, maybe, sure, but nothing new. Upon reading what tweenage me has documented, one might argue I have gotten worse somehow. Not in a ‘gifted child burnt out adult’ way, but in a ‘I knew I was right and I should've maintained my confidence in myself’ way. There was no need to be shamed into ‘change’, because clearly, I have not. and now, the crowd never stops cheering.

Perhaps it was up to the audience, the others, to read me as I wrote me. Bluntly. Directly. With teeth. I fear a lot of my interactions with the world have been a result of reaction in place of understanding. I’m a polarising person, I know this, and there are many opinions of me out there. The only ones I care to read are by myself, aged 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. She seemed to be aware of me in a way I don’t think I will be again, not for another decade.

To be loved is to be known.

I have always loved the sea. the water, the sand, the creatures below the surface, the sun, salt. I have always loved the odd, the curious, the strange. Black cats and witchy girls. I have always loved sharp women, sharp intellect, sharp noses. I have always loved being in the lead. I have always loved red. I have always loved mint tea. Winnie the Pooh, Peter rabbit. I have always loved photographs, lovely things, beautiful things, gold, silver, delicate works of art. I have loved statues, water-logged temples, I have loved ancient ruins and their stories. I have always, always loved food. Grilled octopus, lemon, steak, laksa, potato stew, pani puri, kulfi, gulab jamun. I have always wanted things sweet, but not too sweet, with rose and pistachio. I love the gritty parts of people, the bits that make them lash out. I love to read, to write, to stack my books at my bedside and scribble in all of them. I have always, always loved. collections of beauty, cheekbones, music, music, music. all of it, all the time, playing always.

I love, now, how sure I was. I love, how 2 years ago I set out to love something new, did that, and landed at my own feet.

and it’s all new to me, still.

rereading my diaries, my letters, my journals. I don’t do it often, but when I do, I see the words I use most.

Loves, Love, Loved.