The Flowery Journal My Sister Gave Me (Part 18)

I was glancing ahead at pages in the journal and saw that, towards the end, I would often answer only one question on the page.

I think I started off diligent; then later got lazy.

I don't blame myself.

Some of these questions are quite annoying.

I kind of feel like I was being interrogated.

So...

This page is another one about college.

Note: The blue is what was printed in the journal. Green is what I wrote (probably in 1996)


How I felt during my college years-Semester #1-happy, popular, excited. #2-Loved, happy. #3-happy, a little confused about my feelings. #4-horrible, lonely, depressed, rejected. #5-happy #6-lonely, alienated. #7-Happy, sometimes sad. #8-happy.

So I guess the second semester of my sophomore year was the worst. Or the hardest.

This was when I fell out of love with Mike, my boyfriend, and fell in love with David. And this happened around the same time. So yeah. Confusing.

Did I fall out of love with Mike because of David?

No. I don't think so.

I fell out of love on the family cruise we went on between 3rd and 4th semester.

I lost those loving feelings. I tried to get them back, because I didn't want to end a relationship. Then in the midst of all that, I started to have feelings for David.

That was the beginning of semester 4. Then the middle and the end had me being rejected by David.

I think my theme song for all that was "The Crying Game" by Boy George. I remember listening to that a lot.

What I wanted most-To be more popular. I wanted people to call me all the time. I wanted messages on my answering machine. I also wanted to learn a lot.  

What would be the use of all those phone calls? Did I ever ask myself that?

I think really it's about boosting one's self-esteem. But I think it would work for only so long. Then I'd start thinking things like, All these people think they like me, but if they knew what I was really like, they'd hate me.

Or maybe not. I might not think that. I'd more likely be thinking, This is a fluke. It's not going to last. Tomorrow everyone will have forgotten me.

The problem is, how do you keep up with all those phone calls?  You'd start having to sacrifice some of your sleep, work, hobbies, etc. And/or you'd end up neglecting loved ones.

What I needed most-I needed people to talk to. I needed to know that there was someone who would notice if I was kidnapped and disappeared.

I think it's important to feel that there are people out there who would notice if we were missing.

I have that now. I think Tim and Jack would very much notice if I didn't come down for dinner...breakfast too.  I think that's mostly on Jack, though. Tim can be very casual. I think if it was just the two of us, and I didn't appear for dinner, he'd think something like, Oh I guess she's sleeping.

I could be wrong. He MIGHT go searching for me. But I have a feeling he wouldn't. I don't think he'd start wondering until the next morning.

My sisters and parents would probably notice within a couple of days.

It depends, though.

Sometimes no one in my family texts each other for a few days. Or sometimes there's a lot of texting, but I don't participate. So if I went missing, they might not suspect anything.

Sometimes texts don't get answered right away, and people think nothing of it.

But other times....

Recently my sister texted me. Soon after I texted her back. I think I asked her questions or told her something? And she didn't write back. That was unusual. It's one thing to not answer a text that someone else has initiated. But to not answer a text after you initiated the conversation?

After an hour or so, I got a tiny bit worried. Then I started getting more worried and asked Tim to text her husband. But I didn't want them to know I was worried, so I asked him to just ask something regarding a different subject. If my brother-in-law answered, it seemed sort of a good sign, because it meant they weren't in the midst of a family emergency. Though I did recognize that my sister could have had a trauma her husband hadn't learned of yet.

BUT...just before or as Tim was about to reach out, my sister texted. By then, I think I actually did have the courage to admit I was worried.

Or maybe not.

I forget.

Experiences I was eager to have-boyfriend, sex, close friends.

I ended up getting all of those. Yay me.

What I wanted to learn-Everything. It was important to me to have variety in my class selections.

I loved that college offered such a variety of subjects and that you could learn from subjects outside your major.

What I wanted to show those around me-That I was fun to be around. I wanted people to know the real me, but few did. Very people knew or cared about my writing or about my camp experiences.  

I changed into a whole new Dina. But sometimes I maybe wished people could see the old Dina.

No.

 It wasn't really the old, because I was still writing and I was still going to CF camp.

I think it was more about people knowing only the surface-me.  But to be fair, I probably only knew the surface of them.

What I wanted to become-I wanted to be a writer and a filmmaker.

Thinking more about superficial relationships.

They're not always bad. In fact, I think they can be fun.

There might be people we don't tell our secrets to. We don't talk about our past. We don't talk about our families. We don't share our aspirations. We don't talk what we dreamed last night.

We just have fun together.

Maybe we have water balloon fights.

Or we go dancing together.

Or we team up to fight a war in a video game.

If on Twitter, maybe we all just talk about hating Trump together.

As long as the superficialness is mutual, I think it's fine.

When it becomes NOT-fine is when one person shares their life a lot, and the other person's life is ignored.

One person's life becomes a storyline and the other is just supposed to listen and support. I don't like when that happens.  

Read my novel: The Dead are Online