The blue suede book

I rediscovered my journal. Blue suede cover with a yellow ribbon marker and a magnetic button closure.

This journal, a present from my relatives in Chicago, is probably the longest single journal I've ever kept. It encompasses at least six years of my life. From when I was a senior in high school until now.

Some of the entries catch my eye, stir a memory, conjure up an image. Of visiting my grandma at the care home after her stroke, for instance. Walking down the hallway that smells of bleach and dirty daipers and seeing her in the wheelchair, next to all the other old Japanese women in wheelchairs. Of hearing my grandpa again say with that laughing sparkle in his eye, "Some people have their Happy Hour. Grandpa has Unhappy Hour" and thinking he was drunk when he wasn't.

Other entries leave me puzzled. I don't remember feeling the things I wrote about. Like when my first boyfriend, who I met in college stopped calling me while I was at my internship in Florida. I asked myself if he forgot what it was like to hug me or to drive around Honolulu with me. The version I'd invented for myself was that it was good we'd broken up, I never liked him as much as he deserved. I didn't even cry afterwards, after all.

I wrote about Florida, walking through the neighborhood that was my designated beat and meeting a guy named Vernon who smoked a pipe while he rode his bicycle past old victorian houses.

I wrote about childhood memories--climbing the guava tree in the backyard with my best friends Shari and Ashley, sitting in the tree and singing stupid patriotic songs like "My Country Tis of Thee" and Christmas carols. I wrote about how I resented Shari for being so bossy.

I wrote a lot about my insecurities as a writer. About how junk I was and how I always brought myself down and always managed to make some stupid mistake. These were sometimes followed by peppier entries, urging me to give myself a break, if only for my own sake.

And the journal's still not finished. At least 30 more pages to go. Interestingly enough, I made a decision from the start not to date the entries. Except for the one I wrote on Sept. 11, 2001. I remember telling myself I wanted the spirit of the writing to be more important than exact dates.