My Life in 1990 (Part 4)

The pages I'm reading now are from my senior year of high school.  We had recently moved to Nashville, so I was at a new school.

Welcome to Nashville. Welcome to Hell. No, it's not that bad. Only this guy likes me and I only like him as a friend. I hate that situation very very much. (8/20/90). Was I in that situation very often?  From what I've been reading in my diaries, it doesn't seem like it.

My psychology teacher gave me this horrible look after he told me I was talking to soft. The look lasted for awhile. What a jerk. (8/20/90).

As for all my bad grammar in the diary...I'm not sure if I was completely ignorant about grammar rules, or if, just like now, I'm bad at proofreading.

It might be a mixture of both. It might be that I know the rules...but only when I think carefully about it. It doesn't come as second-nature. If I'm writing quickly and/or am not proofreading, I tend to make mistakes.  

I remember that psychology teacher. I don't think I was too fond of him. He was one of those teachers who thought it was okay for public school teachers to push their Christian beliefs on their students.  

Dawn is doing better. She has her personality, Thank God. 

Okay um my book about the pig dissection is 122 pages. I love it.  (8/20/90).

I loved it, and now I don't remember it!  

When in the world did I write a book about pig dissection?  I'm guessing it was horror.

I thought I remembered all the novels I wrote. So I'm wondering if maybe this is one I never finished.  

I think I know why I was relieved that Dawn's personality was the same. We had gone to family support groups for brain injuries, and some people had shared sad stories about their family members no longer being the same person.

I think I will list all my favorite movies just for the fun of it. Stand By Me, The Lost Boys, The Muppets Take Manhattan, The Little Mermaid, Child's Play, Arachnophobia. Gremlins I and II, Short Circuit I and II.  

Oh this is too hard. I like too many movies. Scrooged, Heathers, Born on the 4th of July, Rainman. Hey, even though I'm in this anti-Tom Cruise thing. I feel so bad about that. Parenthood. All the movies I saw this summer were good. (8/21/90).

I'm not sure what I meant by the anti-Tom Cruise thing.

I know eventually I grew less fond of him, because of Scientology. Did I know about that then?

Derrick is crazy. He is because he said he's not .Crazy people don't admit they're crazy. (9/5/90). I remember Derrick a bit. He had me and someone else believing that he was going to commit suicide by jumping out of a window.  But then it turned out something like the window wasn't high enough to likely cause death. I have more sympathy and understanding for him now than I did then.

Or maybe not.

I divide suicide threats/feelings/statements into three categories. A) The person truly wants to die and is making plans for that wish to come true. B) The person would like to die but is too lazy and/or not brave enough to actually take action C) The person has no desire to die but just wants attention.

I've been at B several times in my life. If you count trying to suffocate yourself by lying under your blankets, I could have been sort of at A.  Maybe I'd be an A-?

I think my mom might argue that I was a C sometimes. Because, occasionally, I would blurt out that I wanted to kill myself. Usually during a big family drama. But it wasn't just about wanting attention. I think when I said those things, I felt so desperate, out of control, and full of despair. I think, at those moments, I was truly wishing to die. Or at least vanish into thin air.

My name is Dina Roberts. I'm 17. I have never smoked. I never drank and I've never taken an illegal drug. I have never murdered nor shoplifted, never rarely cheated, and rarely cheated (I must have meant to put another word there).

No I have done none of the above, but I have performed a horrible sin. Two in fact which has made my father say he hates me. 

I am selfish and a slob.  

This is the way I am and am proud of it....

We don't need guns. Why murder your family when you can find revenge with the Apple computer and your imagination? It's funny. People look at T.V and books of cruel people and think it's all make believe exaggeration. 

Sorry to tell you folks but life is really that bad.   

My dad has to meet the guy who wants to take me out. He says it's because he doesn't want the guy to hurt me. I want to say to that thing who calls himself my father. Dad, unless this guy physically hurts me, he can not hurt me more than you ever did. (9/6/90)

Was all that anger simply about my dad wanting to meet my date?

It kind of sounds like that.

I know, though, that my dad and I didn't get along well during those months.  

But for that entry, I'm not sure if the anger was due to my dad wanting to meet my date. Or if complaining about it was just a way for me to further express that I felt so hurt by him.

I'm really not sure.  

Well, I'm reading further. I'm not going to quote it, because it kind of just repeats itself.

I think I was really mad about my dad calling me selfish and a slob...and probably for saying he hated me.

The only time I remember my dad saying that he hated me was at the mall.

We would travel back to Atlanta on the weekends to be with my mom and Dawn.  For some reason, my dad, myself, and Melissa went to the mall.  Melissa and I went off to do something while my dad did something else. This wasn't our usual Atlanta mall, and I think I got lost.  Or I forgot our meeting place. I know I didn't do anything on purpose.

My dad finally found me and was FURIOUS. I had made us late and taken time away from him seeing his hospitalized daughter. He yelled at me in the middle of the mall. I think this is when he said he hated me. Unless he did it on another occasion as well. 

The memory was confused for me, because I later wrote a novel about the whole drunk-driving-brain-injury drama. When I took what happened and turned it into something that happened to a fictional character, it began to feel like it had happened to a fictional character. I became sort of dissociated from it? Does that make sense?  I wonder if other writers feel that way when they write autobiographical novels.  

I knew the mall thing happened, but I hadn't been sure if my dad had truly said he hated me. I guess it kind of felt far-fetched.

I'm glad I wrote the it down in my diary and I'm glad I'm reading it, so I can know the truth.

I trust my past self...at least when it comes to things that have happened.  I don't invent incidents or conversations...except when writing stories that I clearly label as fiction. Where I do NOT fully trust myself is with feelings.  When it comes to my feelings about things, I lie to myself. I lie to other people. I lie in my writing.   

I am depressed but I don't really know why. (9/13/90). That's kind of funny.  I mean not that I was depressed but that I didn't know why. Looking back, the reasons seem pretty obvious to me. I think it's SO important for children and teenagers to feel truly loved and respected by their parents.

This is the last day in Atlanta. Dawn will be moving to Nashville the 21. I am finished with 3 books, 3 more to go. Then at college, I'll write the 7th. 

I don't think I'll ever find a boyfriend. Derrick would have been a good boyfriend if he didn't go crazy. Oh well.  (9/16/90) 

Oh my God. They found a cure for Cystic Fibrosis. I'm not joking. I wish I was in Atlanta so we could all have a giant party. (9/20/90)

Well, they didn't find a cure for CF. It was just more false hope. (9/23/90)

I wonder what happened there.

My favorite song right now if From a Distance by Bette Midler. (10/7/90) 

Another day in my life which will be forgotten and tossed away. Oh, I do not write good in diaries.

I saw Heathers tonight. I love that movie. I think it's Shakespeare of the 90's. (10/12/90) 

My math teacher was like having a nervous breakdown today. He refused to talk. (10/18/90). Yikes. I wonder what happened there. Was he angry?  Having some kind of seizure?  

I started my 5th book today. I wrote 9 pages in 2 hours. That's about 1 page in 13 minutes. My book is about dreams. I think it is very fantasy. And adventurous. I sure hope I get a book published some day.  (5/23/90).  That girl had such big dreams. A part of me wants to be cruel and whisper to her, You're never going to be accepted by a publisher. You'll end up self-publishing your own books, but only like five people will buy them.  And one day you'll have a blog where you'll copy some of this private stuff you're writing now. You'll imagine that people will read it and care. But that's not really true. You'll probably be the only one.  

Hey! Maybe I DID whisper that to her. Maybe she heard, and by hearing that, she didn't try hard enough to get her work published. Maybe that's why she always gave up too easily.  

So I started my book (for the second time) on October 27. Right now it is 107 pages. I am just beginning to like it. The other 30 pages (rejected draft) did not have the feeling I wanted. (11/4/90)

That book went through many drafts. I think I rewrote it after college maybe?  And then I wrote another draft 10-15 years ago.  By the way, if anyone IS reading this...besides a future version of me...if you're perhaps interested...an online friend copied the novel for me and put it on a website.   It was very nice of him.

I need to look on the bright side of things.

Although I never got anything published...reading my diaries has made me remember and realize I've been lucky enough to have people enthusiastically support my writing.  I'm very grateful for that.  It hasn't happened in awhile and that makes me kind of sad.  But still....

Who knows. There might be better days in the future.  

And no. I'm not trying to use emotional blackmail to get you to click on the link to my novel.

Or maybe I am.

If I am, I'm only doing it, because I don't have the magical powers I'd need to force you to read my novel!!

Click HERE for the index to my diary/journal posts.

How would our world change if we knew for sure there was life after death, and it was easy for our dearly-departed to talk to us via the Internet?   

The Dead are Online  a novel by Dina Roberts