the deeds of a man in his prime

[jazzfish]

I kept a paper journal from the summer after freshman year of high school through the end of January freshman year of college. For reasons that are opaque to me, I've just finished rereading it for the first time in at least twenty years.

I do not recommend this course of action to anyone else.

Two main takeaways that I'm willing to admit to in public:

1) I was depressed, not infrequently suicidally ideating, and (in retrospect) burning out as early as second quarter sophomore year.

2) I was a walking disaster area of interpersonal relationships. And while I knew at the time that I was doing it wrong, I couldn't see what the path to doing it right was. It took me a hell of a long time and no small amount of therapy to even begin to learn my way around that.

I'm intensely grateful to the people I knew in high school who I'm still in touch with now, and sad for the connections that have fallen by the wayside.

Comments

[reedrover]

Wow. I only started journaling on the regular in 2003, long after I’d settled onto the path of becoming who I am.

I’m sorry to read about your struggles. I’m glad you have therapy and a perspective of distance from those times.

[jazzfish]

I'm honestly annoyed that I lack a journal from 1996 through 2000. (For whatever reason I never got in the habit of just typing the damn thing for my own use. Circa 1998 I tried a roll-my-own-html online journal, and it lasted all of three entries and is long gone.) I started using Livejournal in 2001 and that's been incredibly useful in reminding myself how far I've come, and also what the hell I was even thinking at the time. But that five-year gap... that was College Mark I, that was when I made the deliberate decision that I'd rather work fast-food in Blacksburg than live with my folks, that was my relationship with Emily before we both got badly depressed in the wake of the 9/11 economy and subsequent job losses. And I changed enough in those five years that I have trouble recognising 1995 Tucker, let alone 1992.

And, thanks. It's certainly been a journey to get this far, and it ain't over yet.

[reedrover]

Yeah. I can understand that. To quote my mother, I'm in the "process of becoming." Becoming *what* is an exercise of discover all on its own.