[A little bit of housekeeping: I’ll be turning on paid subscriptions in the next few weeks. If you’d like to pledge ahead of time, please do! If not, keep doing what you’re doing. I’ll make another announcement when we’re there.]
I just wrote a short essay on my history as a failed diarist/semi-successful Livejournaler over on my “About” page. You can check it out if you like, but I did want to draw the main feed’s attention to this gem—a scanned page of my childhood diary, complete with the redacted names of my childhood enemies1.
![Two side-by-side entries scanned from a child’s diary. The first entry is dated Sunday, February 2nd, 1996. Groundhog’s Day. There is a frowny face above the date. The entry reads, “Dear Kitty, Talk about neglect! I have been forgetting you for a whole month. Today I got sick. Cramps, mostly. I might be getting my period! Love, Carmen Machado.” The next entry is dated Tuesday, February 4th, 1997. There is a face with a straight-line mouth drawn above the date. The entry reads, “Dear Kitty, Today went okay. [REDACTED NAME] was pressuring me with boys. [REDACTED NAME] was making a big show that she is having a sleepover everyone but me is invited to. But other than that, I was fine. Love, Carmen Machado.” This entry is followed by a list of “favorites” in various categories. Favorite food, pizza. Favorite animal, horse/dolphin. Favorite color, yellow. Favorite number, 12. Favorite book, The Giver. Favorite movie, Little Women. Favorite “eco setting,” the rainforest. And favorite subject, health. On the right side of this column is a little drawing of upright and inverted hearts in a chain.](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!XrHu!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fe992d97b-0c8a-4092-bea4-fcda24e74119_738x501.png "Two side-by-side entries scanned from a child’s diary. The first entry is dated Sunday, February 2nd, 1996. Groundhog’s Day. There is a frowny face above the date. The entry reads, “Dear Kitty, Talk about neglect! I have been forgetting you for a whole month. Today I got sick. Cramps, mostly. I might be getting my period! Love, Carmen Machado.” The next entry is dated Tuesday, February 4th, 1997. There is a face with a straight-line mouth drawn above the date. The entry reads, “Dear Kitty, Today went okay. [REDACTED NAME] was pressuring me with boys. [REDACTED NAME] was making a big show that she is having a sleepover everyone but me is invited to. But other than that, I was fine. Love, Carmen Machado.” This entry is followed by a list of “favorites” in various categories. Favorite food, pizza. Favorite animal, horse/dolphin. Favorite color, yellow. Favorite number, 12. Favorite book, The Giver. Favorite movie, Little Women. Favorite “eco setting,” the rainforest. And favorite subject, health. On the right side of this column is a little drawing of upright and inverted hearts in a chain.")
I can’t decide if my favorite detail is the fact that I sign my full name, that I identify “horse/dolphin” as my favorite animal, that I have a favorite “eco setting,” or that there is not two days but rather one year and two days between the entries2.
I have a very strange and fraught relationship with childhood documents like this; a mix, I think, of being a packrat, being exceptionally sentimental, and having a mother who was constantly threatening to throw away anything she thought I didn’t need3. I managed to save this diary! And though it is a predictably humiliating text, it’s also sweet to see little Carmen practicing her listmaking so early. Like most people, I have always been myself.
This is a joke, I could not tell you one single thing about either of these girls. (Wait, I think one of them might have been a twin? I think.) But I did use their full names in my diary because I was a weird child.
Or the phrase “pressuring me with boys.” Or the fact that my favorite subject was health??? Or the saddest detail in the world about that sleepover followed by “other than that, I was fine.” Truly an impeccable document. One for the archives.
That’s an essay for another day.
My goodness does this look a lot like my own childhood journal entries. The lists! The LISTS!
I recently found a letter I wrote to myself in grade seven as part of a school assignment. It's very funny because it opens with a long missive about how war is obviously very stupid and hypocritical of adults, men should be allowed to express their emotions, and that true bravery is being honest about how you feel...followed by a list of My Enemies and Things I Hate.
Oh to be thirteen.
Bet now they wish they'd invited you!