I hate writing in diaries
Dear Diary,
I have always hated writing in diaries.
As a kid, therapist have told me to write my emotions down to make sense of them. In all fairness, it did make me feel better for a while. I don't remember the first journal I had, but I had multiple up until high school. Some had a fake flimsy metal lock and some I just stored away under the bed.
The first time I was told to write in a journal my mom took me to Target to pick one out. She'd make a point to ensure it had a lock, emphasizing I would have privacy while I worked through my emotions. When we got home, I remember being so excited to start writing. I had so much to say all the time and now finally I had someone to tell it to. Movies like "Dear Dumb Diary", "Read It and Weep", the infamous "Diary of a Wimpy Kid", shaped the way I thought keeping a diary was supposed to be like. I knew in movies people kept their diaries really close to them, and it was a big deal to hide the key in a very intricate manner¹ so I started thinking about where I could hide the keys that came with my journal. I looked over to the doll house² below the windowsill, and I remembered the floor of the bottom floor lifts the tiniest amount. I thought I was so clever hiding it underneath the floor like a heart in a tell tale. Super edgy, I know. The other key I put on the bookcase that adorned the entire wall where the door was.
¹ I’m sure Death Note had nothing to do with this...
²Barbie Malibu Dream House Circa 2012
As time went on I'd go to write in my journal and find things slightly out of place. For instance, I'd place a Bratz shoe³ over the space where I would lift the floor and later find that the shoe was moved out of place⁴. I suspected when my mom came into my room to clean up after me, she'd do a check in my journal to make sure I was safe. At the time, I was furious but I knew confronting her was not the correct move, so instead I started writing in Anglo-Saxon runes. Since she couldn't understand what I was writing she took the journal away with the excuse that I was becoming secretive and could be in danger.
³Why did Bratz dolls have the whole foot come off with the shoe?
⁴I used to make my dolls take their shoes off before entering the house all lined up neatly by the door. Very Hispanic ™ of me.
I was a child, and this journal was important to me. I didn't have many friends, I just didn't understand why people acted like they did, it seemed illogical to me. I lived in a very strict environment, I was not allowed to close my bedroom door, it didn't even have a lock. This journal was the only space that was just mine, or I thought it was supposed to be. The small basement apartment was shaped like a golden cage. I had everything I ever needed, and was always fed and cared for. However, I was not allowed to do so many things I resent as an adult. The windows I had in my room were covered with a vinyl depicting a light blue sky background and soft realistic clouds. I remember putting a build-a-bear sun sticker on the right window as well. Since we lived in the basement, they were shut and boarded from the outside anyways. The walls in my room were such a pale lilac that it looked white. I was not allowed to hang up any posters or artwork that were not approved by my mom. The only two things I was allowed to put up was a laminated poster that had characters representing different emotions and a chore chart. I was told to mark which emotion was prominent for the day, as recommended by my therapist. I wasn't allowed over to anyone's house unless my mom had met their parents and they had no male siblings. I didn't even have keys to the building until I was 14. Point being, I lived on a very short leash and needed this small space to be respected.
I remember having a specific journal that I wrote in a lot. It had the only picture I had of my half-brother, paper souvenirs from misc outings with friends (and my mom to supervise), and normal entries. I also had descriptions of my new high-school and my classmates. This was also around the time I started questioning my sexuality. All my friends were so obsessed with boys at this age. One time they asked who I had a crush on, and I answered honestly, no one. They would not believe me and kept pressing for who it was. Eventually, one day during lunch I picked the first boy I saw and said that it was him. After that, people started spreading the rumor that I liked him, my friends would tell me to write letters, to describe the dreams I was having of him, and all these experiences that I didn't go through. There were specific things I had to do to prove that I liked him, and if I didn't do them how my friends dictated I'd be more outcast than I already was. I turned to my journal and tried to write down how conflicted I was feeling, that people acted so in love with the opposite gender and that I never felt that unless I had known the person for a long time and had developed a close friendship with them first, and even then, I was too busy with AP classes to even think about liking anyone.
Back then it was hard for me to look at someone as more than a friend. I saw these movies and TV shows that emphasized how important it was to like someone and have a crush on them and I felt so isolated from this normal experience I was missing out on. I wrote down how there are all these different sexuality and labels, since the United States government had just legalized same sex marriage in this time, the topic of queerness was very popular. I wrote that I thought I was bisexual. "but then again, who isn't these days" I wrote to try to push down these feelings. When my mom found this entry, she was furious. She called me in and started asking me questions about how I could like women when I told her this guy in my class wanted to go out with me. She said that it's disrespectful to him to like women, that I could cheat on him at any moment; with a women. I tried to argue that if she saw another man she would not cheat on her boyfriend just because he's a man. This didn't convince her, but it made her think for a split second. She was more upset than anything and in the end, I just said it was a phase and she swept it all away telling me not to tell anyone. I remember specifically the topic came back up after my grandmother's death and my mom told me that she was glad she had died before knowing I was queer, else she would have disowned me. That one especially hurt.
Later on, my mom had developed medical issues, which caused some memory loss and difficulty retaining new topics and ideas. When I was outed again in high school by the aforementioned boy that wanted to go out with me, it was another topic of conversation with her. He was saying his religion could never permit him to go out with someone like me, and my mom heard it from one of my classmates' mom. This was the first she was hearing about this... queerness, invading her child. The other moms reached out to my mom and gave her information on conversion camps, church programs, even exorcisms. When she called me in to discuss this, it was another long excruciating dance of me trying to explain to her what my sexuality was and her trying to accept me against every fiber of her being. In the end, I said I'd consider the camps and we'd wait to see if it was a phase or not.
It's stupid really. I hate writing in a diary because I'm scared of what people would think if they read them. Given how my mom reacted to my writing, I was conditioned to think any journal would only cause problems. Now as an adult I write what should be in a journal to show other people, on purpose. Somehow, the choice being mine to share makes it a bit simpler.
There are many stories I could recall throughout my life. Some written the day it happens and some recalled after being buried for too long. Although my mom and I do not talk about my sexuality anymore, our relationship is much better than what it was when I was a teenager. So many events have shaped me into the person I am today, I think it's only fair I try to remember and honor them. I survived, and I am the person I am because of, and in spite of all these following chapters.
Enjoy,
Charlie
