Dear Diary #1 (In the category of Want What You Have)

Forgive Me, Diary, for I have Lapsed,

It's been twenty-five years since my last entry ... journal notation... letter to myself...whatever...

My BFF sometimes worries that I record her life events with commentary of my own -- slanderous perhaps, or libelous, if I type it here: "I shudder to think what you put in your journal about me," she has said to me more than once.

I don't have the heart to tell her I don't keep a journal.

Or, I didn't.

Until today.

Wait, that is not true. I have a few notebooks I saved from my nine-through-twenty-three years. Some are spiral bound, some are thread-bound; one has Strawberry Shortcake on the front cover, sun hat atop her signature curls and a watering can in hand -- it's a dream journal that I kept when I was nine -- the year my parents got divorced. At some time I had cut the strap that held the sides of the tiny, brass padlock in place, proof of my youthful negligence; a lost key and no patience to search for it. I tried to re-read the dream journal entries after I became a "grown up," and my only take-away is that I was a weird kid.

This shocks no one.

But dear, dear Diary, we are not here for this — nostalgia. I'm looking forward to 2016. It's a milestone year for me. If all goes as it should during the upcoming presidential election, it's a milestone year for all American women. It's been nice, in the past eight years, to see American politics go beyond the usual "old white dude" paradigm. I'm all for continuing that trend.

I've changed so much, dear Diary, since I last bothered to coalesce my thoughts in this format. For starters, I consider myself a better writer -- all this practice has not gone amiss (that is a self-esteem thing...I have a stack of rejection  letters). I'm wiser -- I won't say in what ways. More foolish, too. You would be amazed what you can learn about yourself if you live long enough, and if you allow yourself to try things you never tried, taste broth you never sipped, suggest adventures to others that you could scarcely conceive for yourself and found yourself disappointed when no one else liked the idea. Irony becomes a friend and gravity an enemy, if you live long enough. If you're lucky...

Dear Diary, am I lucky?

30Dec2015. KHN