Dear Diary..

I've kept a journal since I was 12, and I still have every one. They sit in draws in my room, sometimes I open them and have a read. Most of the time I don't. I love that they are there though, A record that I was here, that I existed, that those years happened. I like that I can look back to my perspective at 12, 13 ,15, 18 and see how I saw things back then. It's a guilty pleasure and a selfish past time but Journaling, writing, sketching, expressing, It's something I'll always do. And If I can make a living from it than I'll be a very happy girl.

I say all that to say this, Today I was cleaning out my journals and I opened one, It was the year of 2003. Th year I almost died on more than one occasion, the year I lost my grandmother to cancer, the year I was told I would need a heart transplant, the year I flew to Sydney with the make a wish foundation to meet the cast of home and away (don't judge me), the year I had open heart surgery 6 days before Christmas. I opened the journal, wanting to delve into the mind of my 14 year old self, truly wondering how I had felt, what I had thought of the whole thing. I expected long rants of confusion, medical questions, end of days prayers, the works... And what I got was.. BOYS!
Seriously the whole journal was about boys, and how I liked this boy, and if I should tell him, and if I was fat and if he would like me and why, God forbid, I was 14 and didn't have a boyfriend. I honestly couldn't believe it, I was going through the roughest physical time of my life (and that's saying a lot considering I'd already had 2 open heart surgery's) and all I could think about was BOYS.

Then it dawned on me, maybe I'm doing that now too. If I read back to my journals of today would I be thinking, oh that was my first year of uni, I moved out of home, started volunteering, beginning my "adult life". But I wouldn't find any of that in the pages of my diary, nothing about uni or work or volunteering, all I would find written was pages of confusion about a boy, about my appearance, about my insecurities. Really, I'm 14 all over again.

Smile often
Beth