2010: the year of KENDALL!!!

Because this is my blog (and a "slow-going" blog at that, as one friend has vocalised...ahem...), and because a New Year arrives tomorrow (and what better time to reflect on where you came from, and think about where you are going), I thought I would totally indulge myself by showing you some excerpts from a journal I kept exactly ten years ago. I just encountered this journal in my tiny old nightstand. In every instance, I have done the bare minimum to edit into stand-alone excerpts.

(Anyone allergic to melodrama, or to teenagers who take themselves too seriously, should NOT read on. Even those of you not allergic, I bet I can make you cringe.)

Kendall Sand in 1999-2000. This journal houses the dreams and prayers of Kendall Sand (That is actual title of journal, as written by author on title page).

• "I want to write. I don't know when or where, or for what. But I want to write and I see this as a chance to practice a little every day and become more aware of my voice. Who knows what the future of this journal, or my writing, may hold."

• "If I ever write about being seventeen, I had better remember how much of my life revolved around the enigma of love. What the hell is it?"

• "The comfort I find in solitude does not signify that there is something fundamentally malignant in the core of my being. I am okay!"
  

• "I fear that I will be the kind of person who spends her youth dreaming about what will be, her adulthood dreaming of what was, and fails completely to ever feel content".

• "Every so often, I think it is very valuable to sit down and think hard about who you are. It is late, and I am not up to the task of delving into the complex mystery of me, but this is a brief review:"

• "My identity mantra: I know who I am, what it means to be me. I'll be okay."

• (At this point, I had a terrible crush. Be especially gentle with 17 year old Kendall.)
  "He was polite, I was a kid he was polite to. But...did he have to be so nice, or so genuine, or so hot? Of course. That is what makes unrequited love the bitter pill that it is, the sheer beauty of its target. And he is beautiful, in a radical way that denies beauty, or transcends it. Alas, I am swept away by my much overheated, underused heartstrings."
  

• "Do you know what I see when I picture myself in the future? Nothing. I have absolutely no idea where I want to go or what I want to do."

• "Tonight marks the closing of a door. A door that, if it were up to me, should have stayed open. I crossed my fingers, said short prayers, and stuck a foot in the door just to delay its closing. But shut it is, and I bid a let-down goodbye to the high school football game."

• "Wow, my first journal entry of the new millenium! I am pleased to report no cases of mass destruction or rioting. We're all still okay."

• "When I go back through this journal, I just might barf at its shallow and superficial content. Rest assured, Kendall of the future, you worry about animals and pollution, you volunteer your time, and value the achievement of a deep and personal consciousness. "

Then the journal breaks down into several pages of song lyrics. That's right. Song lyrics. If I'm feeling really strapped for topics in 2010, I might just screw the pooch and reproduce them here. But they are very, very bad.

To recap:

At seventeen, I used words like "alas," and "enigma" and "underused hearstrings." I had an identity mantra. I valued "the achievement of a deep and personal consciousness."

At twenty-seven, I use words like "shit," "blam-o," and "wack-a-doo." I have an identity crisis. I value women who have long hair.

Oh good god, where is the coffee ice cream.

In the words of Andy Rooney, "Happy New Year, almost everyone."

See you back here in 2010!

Kendall of the future