The diary got opened.

And yes, it is immensely embarrassing! This is the LEAST EMBARRASSING PAGE!

Look at that mix of self awareness, self consciousness and smugly precocious pretentiousness! Look at the use of early internet-paralinguistic-cue-speak (smiles wryly)!

And, and, and - who am I talking to!?!?

Why did I write this?

What did I make for dinner that night?

Why did I sign my name!?!!

What was the date?

Why wouldn’t I put a date in? There’s a little line there for it and everything. Did I think I was rebelling against the tyranny of forced formatting? (Probably).

I still use parentheses! (A lot)

I still have the same fountain pen! I wrote with it today!

Dad got Hen and me both one for our birthday that year. It’s not quite as special as it sounds because I haven’t been using it continuously in the intervening years - I think I left it in a box back in my university days and just unpacked it a week or two ago. That would have been a *great* story, but it’s only a good one now. I’m resisting the urge to pretend, because there’s a list of resolutions on the next page including

• Don’t exaggerate!

Good advice, little Alice. Though in many ways, exaggerating is an important job skill for me now. I lived in such a daydream world back then, it was half pragmatism, trying to help mum and get through the world and the rest of the time I was floating somewhere in a series of long running stories in my head.

I remember my childhood very well, but my teens are mainly blank, so it’s fascinating to find this book alternating petty whingeing, teenage emotions and quite brutal existential questions.

It’s amazing to me, to look back and think about the things I liked and hated about myself; how some of them have shifted and some of them are word for word the same refrain that beats in my head when I fall short, twenty years down the road.

Anyway, I can’t imagine this is wildly interesting for you lovely people, but it did make me think at least one cool thing, which is that NOW when I write my thoughts, I know who I’m writing to!!!!

You’re the ‘you’ now!

That’s pretty cool and amazing, especially when I think of that odd lonely kid, writing to an absent ‘you’. I could get soppy and say I always imagined you’d come along, but I also used to spend geography class imagining I was robbing a castle with an intermittently malfunctioning antigravity vest, so let’s not get carried away.

Xx

A

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If you like this, or any of my other work, please do share it around. I’m trying to keep as much stuff here free as possible, particularly during this rough economic time. I know a few of you have had to drop down tiers for economic reasons - and I’m incredibly moved that you’re still supporting me in whatever ways you can, whether it’s telling friends about my work, sharing it around or just listening along to Tea With Alice or The Last Post.