Old Diary Excerpts

On By Scott HolstadIn Writing

On April 11th, I wrote a post called Finding My Old Diaries in which I told of finding 16 old diaries of mine dating from 1984 to 1992 in an old box I haven’t touched since the ’90s. I’ve been slowly reading through them. I’m now on volume 7, starting July 29, 1987. I’ve realized in these first six volumes what an insipid twit I was. In my defense, I was a teenager going on 20, so I guess I’m allowed a mulligan, right? Heh. God, I was obsessed with relationships, sex, friends, music, sports and several other things. Wow, I was a drama queen! Hopefully I’ll mature in the coming volumes.

I thought I’d print a few excerpts from one of my old diaries about my wonderful long gone dog, Scamper, dying. She was a Schnauzer and had been my best friend for close to 16 years. Anyway, here goes:

August 10, 1987: I dug Scamper’s grave tonight. It’s very sad, incredibly unhappy, and I’ve been crying nonstop. She’s going to be killed tomorrow. Stroke. Wouldn’t make it. 15 1/2 good years. You couldn’t ask for a better dog. I’m going to miss her a lot….

August 17, 1987: Scamper died today finally. Mom took her. From what I understand, it was peaceful at least. I’m really very sad. I love her and I’m going to miss her…. I hope she’s happy now.

August 18, 1987: Scamp’s gone and I’m so terribly sad. She’s lying in her little grave, all alone. I feel like being bitter about it, want to be bitter, but there’s no one to be bitter at…. Last night, Chip and Laura came over and we went to Dee’s. We went out for some beer. Laura brought me flowers and they consoled me. I was really touched. It was truly very nice of them….

Well, enough of that. I didn’t write very much. My entries were all quite short back then. My later diaries have much longer entries, some that stretch on for pages. For a little levity, here is part of an entry from the next month.

September 10, 1987: This trip to Hilton Head was great — 10 days, eight of which were rainy. Nonetheless, we had a damn blast! We hit all the bars and restaurants for happy hours. I think I gained six pounds! I drank a lot of Becks Dark, Sol, and gin collins. At Ruby’s, we ran into Brian B and Mark L from Knoxville and ran around with them. About 20 of us rented CQ’s yacht one night and went out until about 3:30 AM. We had a keg, six cases of beer, and seven bottles of wine. One of the girls fell overboard and another got sick, but a good time was had by all (or nearly all — heh!)….

OK, so I partied a lot in college. Sue me. Everyone else did too. LOL! I guess this is it for now. I’ve encountered many interesting entries among all of the completely superficial ones, and it’s bringing back a lot of (hazy) memories. I’m really glad I found these. Maybe if I happen upon something else remotely interesting, I’ll blog about it….

10 thoughts on “Old Diary Excerpts”

  1. Awanthi Vardaraj

    I did this a while back. I have a diary for every year of my life until I turned seventeen, and I clearly became too cool to write in paper diaries (I blame Doogie Howser with his electronic diary entries for this). I took the box down and went through some of it. I thought my teenage self was incredibly silly. All girls are silly (no sillier than boys, of course, but silly nevertheless). I was a romantic, castle-in-the-air-drawing child who was overly sensitive and a tad emotional. The best years of our lives, right? Or something. *laugh*

    Like

    1. LOL! Wow, you seriously kept a lot of diaries! Yeah, what’s with all the teenage angst and drama? I was terribly silly too. I’m anxious to see some maturing as I continue to read through these diaries. Do you still keep an electronic diary?

      Like

      1. Awanthi Vardaraj

        I have just moved to a series of blogs, with my WordPress one hopefully being my last and final one. *chuckle*

        I’m 35 now, and I like the person I’ve become. Actually, since I wrote your comment, I’ve been thinking that I needed to be incredibly angsty and emotional and dramatic and overly sensitive and victim-y in order to become the woman I am now. It’s wonderful isn’t it, how boys become men, and girls become women? Looking at their teenage selves it’s a wonder it happened at all! *laugh*

        Like

        1. I’ve been keeping a blog going on one site or another since 2004. And since last June, I’ve been keeping a more detailed diary on my iPhone Momento and Flava apps. I do regret not recording anything between 1992 and 2004 though.

          I like your observation. I think it took me an extra long period of time to become a man, and ultimately mature as a male to boot. Maybe it’s because I was an only child or I was sadly fairly narcissistic, but life finds a way to hand you some victories along with many defeats (in my case), and I like to say that life beat maturity into me at some point. LOL!

          Like

        2. Awanthi Vardaraj

          *laugh* I’m glad it happened! I have met people who haven’t quite got it yet and are in their forties, fifties, sixties – and it’s tragic. I keep feeling like they’ve missed out on something and they don’t even realise it.

          It’s a pity you didn’t record those years of your life, but you were also probably too busy living life as well, and there’s nothing wrong with that at all. 🙂

          Like

        1. Good post with interesting comments. Thanks for sharing. Personally, I vacillate between wanting a re-do and wanting nothing to do with that possibility. Given the chance, I would re-live my younger years in so many other ways, but then, would I be the person I am today if that were to happen? I doubt it. I guess I’ll stick with where I’m at and hope to keep growing as a person. Cheers!

          Like

  2. Next Stop, Willoughby

    I dug out some of my old diaries just yesterday. I thought about posting some of them, but they just made me cringe when I read them. Mine were from a time when I was older. I came across an entry that I did on 9/11. Boy, was I misinformed. I had 4 towers coming down. I also talked about how it was the end of the world and that we would never make it to 2002.

    Like

    1. Yeah, my dairies are making me cringe too. LOL! Interesting 9/11 entry. Interesting to see our predictions from a long time ago. I’ve got that too. Boy, was I wrong on some stuff!

      Like

Comments are closed.