Anxious? Who, me?

In my 1971 diary, I wrote every day in the color of my mood. Not only that, I added a little bar of color into the outlined year on the cover page. I was careful to leave the accurate amount of white space when I didn't write. Not only that, I kept track in the back cover, of how many times I used each pen, and also which pens were lost, ran out of ink, or weren't purchased at the beginning of the year, so as to give a clearer picture of what was actually happening, with those pens. 

That fourteen year old knew what she was feeling. "Dear Diary," she writes, "I'm angry!" or "I'm happy" or "I'm worried about Mom," or "I'm muy deprisido." Susan asked if I was an anxious kid. "Not that I knew of," I told her, "but I DID have a lot of systems!"

In a mushy letter I wrote to my parents about that time, I thanked my Dad for "talking to me about statistics." It meant a lot to me. 

At first I tagged this OCD, but then I changed it to OCP (obsessive compulsive personality). Leah taught me that term. We both have it. Besides, how could this be a disorder? It's the opposite- everything is perfectly, reassuringly, in order.

"Talk To Me In A Year," they said.

Tomorrow is my year anniversary of arriving in Portland. Whenever I said how much I love it here, locals would say, "Talk to me in a year." Well I still love it and yes it's still raining. Here is my journal entry from April 12, 2011: (I'd been on the road two months)

In a sleeping bag on a couch in a house full of antique typewriters. And a very loud clock for which I used my earplugs for the first time. An absolutely gorgeous drive up Redwood Hwy yesterday from Eureka to Coos Bay. Gorgeous! What could be better than white indigo waves crashing onto black craggy rocks, beaches strewn with driftwood, curving freshwater streams from rich dusky forests, cute roadside displays of carved bears, the surprise of an elk herd lounging in a bright meadow. Stuff like that. Jim (my aunt's hubbin) just brought me coffee, the dear man.

Today's the day! To Portland! The wandering comes to a close but the adventure continues.

(Within that entry was a flashback to a luscious evening deep in the Mendocino forest when I crashed Serra's friends, Cadence and Mike's wedding, but I'm afraid it can't be shared in this format. That's the difference between a diary and a blog.)

Today I sent 25 pages of teen diary and a really embarrassing unsent letter to Susan. She's going to knock it down to maybe 5 pages. Curious to see what she does.