Little D/ Old Me

" Girls go to China to get their vagina and boys go to Venus to get their penis." 

This I found to be scrawled under 1998 in my first diary.  I should be more specific. It was written like this " Today she told me that girls go to China to get their vagina and boys go to Venus to get their penis" .  That was the end. No further commentary.  My eight-year-old self felt it necessary to include this new information in my diary.  It was very matter of fact. Now if I were to write such a thing down it would be something more like can you believe this girls she does not know when genitalia come from, I should probably let her know that genitalia come from the genitalia fairy. The hermaphrodite rides a hovercraft. I wonder if my eight-year-old self corrected her and just forgot to include it. 

I often read things I wrote before I knew I wanted to be a writer, which was only the first ten years of my life, and I often find them to be quite hilarious. There was no rhyme or reason. I was never reflective. Never. It was simply facts and maybe what I had for dinner.  In regards to my diary sometimes I would include if I did something exciting. I never wrote it in an excited fashion. There were not exclamation points to be had. It was simply. " I am going to the movies, the library and out to eat with Daddy." All those words were of coursed spelled wrong, except for 'I', but that was it. Then I would move onto something else.

I was reading through this first diary of mine. A small Barbie  diary with a little gold lock. I noticed that I apologized to it. " Sorry for spelling all these words wrong. My bad." I did not think the diary knew, but I think I believed that one day someone would stumble upon it and judge me. Or that someone was always watching me. I did grow up in a rather religious home so I guess I thought God was ignoring the rest of the world to read my diary. But if I thought that I wouldn't have apologized because he would have been the one to not grant me the talent of spelling.  When I read it, though, I laughed. My little self was adorable and I realized we are not quite different. Not in a matter of adorableness but in the matter of how we both write like someone is watching. My diaries, or journals as I like to call them, are still written like someone is going to look at them. Now I don't think it is God or any other mystical being but maybe my future children will want to read it some day? Or maybe I am training myself to write for an audience, it has been a marathon. Only it never ends.

Little me also threw the diary aside when she thought it was getting boring. Majority of the pages are blank, this pattern has been very consitant. I often think about filling them in with my left hand until I reach the age where my hand writing became legible. But that would be deceitful. The empty pages also say something to my charachter. I do not seek perfection but I strive to be the person who seeks it.  It comes across not only in my writing but also in my private scribblings. I set journals aside if they are not up to par. The funny thing is I am not even sure I have a bar.   My eight-year-old self knew the story. she recorded things as she saw them and would let whoever was reading over her shoulder, so to speak, make what they will of them. I nudge that person with my elbow and ask if he/she would like me to add an adjective or perhaps an exclamation point