March 16, 1983
10:15 P.M.
After just finishing reading this all, it is perfect to begin by saying that I’m back here again. Yes I’m still alive and have hardly written for a long time. I meant to write in her the night I came home because my things never did go as I had planned they would with my mother. But if I wrote down any of that it just would have been sloppy sentiment. I was even debating in my mind whether or not I really wanted to write again while I’m here. I’m trying not to think too much about it. Yesterday when I arrived I wanted to go home again. When I called my mother I told her I wanted to come home next Thursday instead of Sunday and she said I was crazy. That’s true. I’m sure I can manage the full 12 days, and only 10 more to go but I promised myself I wouldn’t count them this time. It’s a ridiculous thing to do especially since I brought myself here. This, I promise will be my very last time in Puerto Rico – my fifth and final visit to the island. I’ve spent one day in the sun and already I am bright red. That’s pretty bad and it hurts. I’m here also to starve myself as I am very very fat and I hate it, and I am also here for the obvious reason, getting away from things and people at home. I called my father up on the phone on Saturday February 5, the day after something upsetting happened between me and a boy I had been dating. He was my first real boyfriend and for me it became a very emotional attachment. I fell in love with him or that is at least the label I put on what I was feeling and going through over him. When things went wrong I decided that I definitely needed to get away and beautify myself by clearing up my skin, letting my hair grow longer and blonder, getting a tan and losing weight. I wanted to get James back but what I’m now trying to do is get another boyfriend. I never told my mother about most of this and I know it upset her. I wanted to discuss it with Woody and Ms. Fetters but I spoke to Mrs. Chasan about it and also Elaine of course. I talked myself out and have done enough talking. I want to shut-up for a while. School isn’t going great either and I’m still waiting to here from colleges. Of course I can’t wait to get home but I truly am a very busy person. The play is finally over which is good and so is yearbook which I never did much for anyway and tried to make up for all in the end because I wanted to help the book’s advisor. When I go back, I have a job to worry about and grades to keep up and at. Like the last time, I should just enjoy the relaxation that I will inevitably get. But I feel guilty about being here because I paid for it myself. That’s why I want to come home early so I can get back to work and do things around the house. I love my job. I am a waitress at Grunings and I love it. It’s very tiring though. Elaine works there too. I know you are dying to hear how discussions of Les Miserables went. They were okay. We only spent two or three days discussing it but I guess that’s understandable since it was a summer reading and Ms. Fetters – the wonderful and brilliant new English teacher – read it in the beginning of the summer. It wasn’t like Hamlet which we discussed for almost a month. I think it was a month. I’ll never forget it because it was practically the whole time I was seeing James. And him, I don’t ever care to see again. I just don’t like him and I don’t want to be reminded of all the kissing and other things we did with each other. It just makes me feel rotten and not guilty but impure and I bet I sound really stupid but I learned so so much from having a boyfriend and expressing “feelings of tenderness” for each other. And now I know some new things about male female relationships that I still wouldn’t have known if it weren’t for this recent episode in my life but I feel so less naïve and more harshly experienced than I ever wanted to be. Because now I know what lust is and what physical attraction is. For James, I had both a physical and an emotional attachment to him but I never want to feel that way again for him, ever. That is why I want absolutely nothing to do with him. Yuck, I don’t know why but when I think of him and me being physical with him I get totally grossed out with myself. Maybe it’s because to think of my next encounter whenever that may be. How I could possibly be attracted to more than one man! I just am afraid of being a part of the dating game. I want one man. James wasn’t he but I only found that out after I kissed him and YUCK! I know I never would have let anything happen if it weren’t truly felt but it was truly felt, for me at least and I thought for him too. But not for him. I got taken in and I feel like a whore. Yuck! Maybe we all have lust but men are just too much not in control of their feelings to put it nicely and that makes me sick sometimes. I just hope everything will be okay for me even though I am no longer naïve. One day I will laugh at all of this and it may be a reason for suicide at how little I have raison d’etre, and knowledge. I get depressed, I’m tired, I don’t know what’s going to happen in my life after high school. I will never make something of myself. What’s left? To be kind to everyone and just to be happy. What about friends? I don’t know. Family? Well, will I ever get married and have children? I’ve given up on my father. I must only worry about my mother. She’s far more important although I still really believe that me having been born on this Earth was a total screw-up. I am an intellectual and sexual creature. If I do not find a man to marry and raise children with then I must get an education, study languages and teach abroad. I want an exciting life – one devoted to attempts at discovering TRUTH AND GOODNESS, the seemingly nonentities which lie in all men’s hearts. I would love to work in New York City and be the woman who was responsible for housing all the street urchins, preventing more shopping bag ladies and bums and taking care of the ones already there. That is one of my ambitions. I still would like to be Jean Valjean and marry Jesus Christ but I really don’t feel special like I used to anymore. I feel so unimportant lately and I just have a hunch that something is responsible for that. I think it’s my school. I felt so hated and expendable when I was suspended for smoking cigarettes on campus. I’ll try not to let it happen again but I feel lonesome and worthless. College is coming and things will be far worse if I don’t get my mind cleared before I go away. I hope I can talk to Ms. Fetters before I go to college. I hope she’s around. She probably won’t be. I think that she would be an excellent mother and I think she has such a clear-thinking mind – a gift which I hope to get one day. I know her thinking has influenced me and I want to soak up more of it. I don’t always agree with her and I am definitely not one of her most articulate students but she fascinates me. She will only have been my English teacher for one year but I learned so much from her. I hope I can tell her that. I will write it in her yearbook. During Christmas vacation she wrote me a letter which I enjoyed immensely, immensely! I just know she won’t be writing me this time but I want to write to her. I know she likes me a lot. She helped me so much on the day that I found out I got suspended from school. She really made me feel so much better and helped me put things in perspective. I don’t know if she would agree, but I couldn’t do it for myself and I was really lucky she cared. Lately though, something not so great happened between us that I learned a lesson from and leaves me only feeling that friendship does cause pain and maybe I shouldn’t be so ready and willing to give of myself just so I can hope that somebody may just turn around and tell me that I am loved also but I changed my mind on that just a little while ago. I thought that maybe I should no longer be so loving and just keep my relationships surfaced but I am not like that and I will continue to probably do things the wrong way. Right now I am not feeling sorry for myself but I do often get hurt and I do hurt people. When I wrote Ms. Fetters a note that she thought was disrespectful, she told me and I was speechless. I wish I could have just apologized then but I was shocked and then very very upset. I couldn’t think well on the matter at all. I was totally confused but then decided to apologize for being disrespectful to her. But I never did. I still can though. Ever since she came to Vail-Deane I felt some sort of bond with her but I wanted to be meticulously consciously aware of not letting her know too much about me, my family life or my feelings. I wanted to discuss English with her which we did and next a few small things after class – slowly becoming a friendly student of hers who was more than willing to welcome her here and become a more than good acquaintance but only on an external level. Why I didn’t want her to realize any of my underlying problems I don’t know. I think it might have been because I wanted her to later help me and I did not want to scare her off. But did I think she could help me? I might have very well have been right because she has given me great advice. The one awful day she was not so nice to me and then she called me and apologized. I was so crushed at first but was elated that she called me. We discussed Paul Banner over the telephone and we subsequently had more little discussions and I enjoyed every minute thinking how lucky I was that I found a new friend. I gave her a present for Christmas because I really wanted to and she wrote me over vacation and I thought she must really like me. Then one day we had a conversation about something dealing with sex and then another about the problem I was having with my peers. That was the first time I spoke to her on a deeper level. It went well enough and I really did feel a lot better. And everything was back to normal as far as a level was concerned. That was in the midst of my James crisis and that is what I really wanted Ms. Fetters advice on but I couldn’t. By the next week I was truly miserable and Mrs. Chasan noticed. A few weeks later I wanted again to tell Ms. Fetters about the problem I was having with me being suspended but she got to me first and I felt very very good. But one day two weeks later she got upset and I happened to be observing and I got upset too because I wanted to do something for this person what was becoming someone important to me even if only on a professional level. I wrote her a note telling her how I felt and it didn’t go over well. Then I felt I made a big mistake but it was only because I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t even want Ms. Fetters to know how upset I was at the time that she was upset. So there was a misunderstanding and I’m really sorry. We’ve talked since and she’s been really nice to me but now I feel tension and I don’t want to because I don’t want to get attached to her like I do with everybody. I want to grow up and look at all situations perceptively – the way I think Ms. Fetters does. I hope things will continue as they were for us because I do enjoy the intellectual talks she has shared with me. I say not me with her because she is much smarter than I am. And I enjoy when things run a little deeper too. She is an interesting and good person and I hope her life turns out okay for her. I also think she’s pretty. And I yet have not asked her if she has a religion and how her father is. That is something I’ve been thinking about all year. Her father had a major heart attack in late September and I never heard about him since. She’s spoken about her mother though. I think I’ll ask Mrs. C. or Mr. A. Anyway, Ms. Fetters is a complex person and I think I can deal with that. I am too and I can’t deal with me but I think I will learn something from Ms. Fetters.
After just finishing reading this all, it is perfect to begin by saying that I’m back here again. Yes I’m still alive and have hardly written for a long time. I meant to write in her the night I came home because my things never did go as I had planned they would with my mother. But if I wrote down any of that it just would have been sloppy sentiment. I was even debating in my mind whether or not I really wanted to write again while I’m here. I’m trying not to think too much about it. Yesterday when I arrived I wanted to go home again. When I called my mother I told her I wanted to come home next Thursday instead of Sunday and she said I was crazy. That’s true. I’m sure I can manage the full 12 days, and only 10 more to go but I promised myself I wouldn’t count them this time. It’s a ridiculous thing to do especially since I brought myself here. This, I promise will be my very last time in Puerto Rico – my fifth and final visit to the island. I’ve spent one day in the sun and already I am bright red. That’s pretty bad and it hurts. I’m here also to starve myself as I am very very fat and I hate it, and I am also here for the obvious reason, getting away from things and people at home. I called my father up on the phone on Saturday February 5, the day after something upsetting happened between me and a boy I had been dating. He was my first real boyfriend and for me it became a very emotional attachment. I fell in love with him or that is at least the label I put on what I was feeling and going through over him. When things went wrong I decided that I definitely needed to get away and beautify myself by clearing up my skin, letting my hair grow longer and blonder, getting a tan and losing weight. I wanted to get James back but what I’m now trying to do is get another boyfriend. I never told my mother about most of this and I know it upset her. I wanted to discuss it with Woody and Ms. Fetters but I spoke to Mrs. Chasan about it and also Elaine of course. I talked myself out and have done enough talking. I want to shut-up for a while. School isn’t going great either and I’m still waiting to here from colleges. Of course I can’t wait to get home but I truly am a very busy person. The play is finally over which is good and so is yearbook which I never did much for anyway and tried to make up for all in the end because I wanted to help the book’s advisor. When I go back, I have a job to worry about and grades to keep up and at. Like the last time, I should just enjoy the relaxation that I will inevitably get. But I feel guilty about being here because I paid for it myself. That’s why I want to come home early so I can get back to work and do things around the house. I love my job. I am a waitress at Grunings and I love it. It’s very tiring though. Elaine works there too. I know you are dying to hear how discussions of Les Miserables went. They were okay. We only spent two or three days discussing it but I guess that’s understandable since it was a summer reading and Ms. Fetters – the wonderful and brilliant new English teacher – read it in the beginning of the summer. It wasn’t like Hamlet which we discussed for almost a month. I think it was a month. I’ll never forget it because it was practically the whole time I was seeing James. And him, I don’t ever care to see again. I just don’t like him and I don’t want to be reminded of all the kissing and other things we did with each other. It just makes me feel rotten and not guilty but impure and I bet I sound really stupid but I learned so so much from having a boyfriend and expressing “feelings of tenderness” for each other. And now I know some new things about male female relationships that I still wouldn’t have known if it weren’t for this recent episode in my life but I feel so less naïve and more harshly experienced than I ever wanted to be. Because now I know what lust is and what physical attraction is. For James, I had both a physical and an emotional attachment to him but I never want to feel that way again for him, ever. That is why I want absolutely nothing to do with him. Yuck, I don’t know why but when I think of him and me being physical with him I get totally grossed out with myself. Maybe it’s because to think of my next encounter whenever that may be. How I could possibly be attracted to more than one man! I just am afraid of being a part of the dating game. I want one man. James wasn’t he but I only found that out after I kissed him and YUCK! I know I never would have let anything happen if it weren’t truly felt but it was truly felt, for me at least and I thought for him too. But not for him. I got taken in and I feel like a whore. Yuck! Maybe we all have lust but men are just too much not in control of their feelings to put it nicely and that makes me sick sometimes. I just hope everything will be okay for me even though I am no longer naïve. One day I will laugh at all of this and it may be a reason for suicide at how little I have raison d’etre, and knowledge. I get depressed, I’m tired, I don’t know what’s going to happen in my life after high school. I will never make something of myself. What’s left? To be kind to everyone and just to be happy. What about friends? I don’t know. Family? Well, will I ever get married and have children? I’ve given up on my father. I must only worry about my mother. She’s far more important although I still really believe that me having been born on this Earth was a total screw-up. I am an intellectual and sexual creature. If I do not find a man to marry and raise children with then I must get an education, study languages and teach abroad. I want an exciting life – one devoted to attempts at discovering TRUTH AND GOODNESS, the seemingly nonentities which lie in all men’s hearts. I would love to work in New York City and be the woman who was responsible for housing all the street urchins, preventing more shopping bag ladies and bums and taking care of the ones already there. That is one of my ambitions. I still would like to be Jean Valjean and marry Jesus Christ but I really don’t feel special like I used to anymore. I feel so unimportant lately and I just have a hunch that something is responsible for that. I think it’s my school. I felt so hated and expendable when I was suspended for smoking cigarettes on campus. I’ll try not to let it happen again but I feel lonesome and worthless. College is coming and things will be far worse if I don’t get my mind cleared before I go away. I hope I can talk to Ms. Fetters before I go to college. I hope she’s around. She probably won’t be. I think that she would be an excellent mother and I think she has such a clear-thinking mind – a gift which I hope to get one day. I know her thinking has influenced me and I want to soak up more of it. I don’t always agree with her and I am definitely not one of her most articulate students but she fascinates me. She will only have been my English teacher for one year but I learned so much from her. I hope I can tell her that. I will write it in her yearbook. During Christmas vacation she wrote me a letter which I enjoyed immensely, immensely! I just know she won’t be writing me this time but I want to write to her. I know she likes me a lot. She helped me so much on the day that I found out I got suspended from school. She really made me feel so much better and helped me put things in perspective. I don’t know if she would agree, but I couldn’t do it for myself and I was really lucky she cared. Lately though, something not so great happened between us that I learned a lesson from and leaves me only feeling that friendship does cause pain and maybe I shouldn’t be so ready and willing to give of myself just so I can hope that somebody may just turn around and tell me that I am loved also but I changed my mind on that just a little while ago. I thought that maybe I should no longer be so loving and just keep my relationships surfaced but I am not like that and I will continue to probably do things the wrong way. Right now I am not feeling sorry for myself but I do often get hurt and I do hurt people. When I wrote Ms. Fetters a note that she thought was disrespectful, she told me and I was speechless. I wish I could have just apologized then but I was shocked and then very very upset. I couldn’t think well on the matter at all. I was totally confused but then decided to apologize for being disrespectful to her. But I never did. I still can though. Ever since she came to Vail-Deane I felt some sort of bond with her but I wanted to be meticulously consciously aware of not letting her know too much about me, my family life or my feelings. I wanted to discuss English with her which we did and next a few small things after class – slowly becoming a friendly student of hers who was more than willing to welcome her here and become a more than good acquaintance but only on an external level. Why I didn’t want her to realize any of my underlying problems I don’t know. I think it might have been because I wanted her to later help me and I did not want to scare her off. But did I think she could help me? I might have very well have been right because she has given me great advice. The one awful day she was not so nice to me and then she called me and apologized. I was so crushed at first but was elated that she called me. We discussed Paul Banner over the telephone and we subsequently had more little discussions and I enjoyed every minute thinking how lucky I was that I found a new friend. I gave her a present for Christmas because I really wanted to and she wrote me over vacation and I thought she must really like me. Then one day we had a conversation about something dealing with sex and then another about the problem I was having with my peers. That was the first time I spoke to her on a deeper level. It went well enough and I really did feel a lot better. And everything was back to normal as far as a level was concerned. That was in the midst of my James crisis and that is what I really wanted Ms. Fetters advice on but I couldn’t. By the next week I was truly miserable and Mrs. Chasan noticed. A few weeks later I wanted again to tell Ms. Fetters about the problem I was having with me being suspended but she got to me first and I felt very very good. But one day two weeks later she got upset and I happened to be observing and I got upset too because I wanted to do something for this person what was becoming someone important to me even if only on a professional level. I wrote her a note telling her how I felt and it didn’t go over well. Then I felt I made a big mistake but it was only because I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t even want Ms. Fetters to know how upset I was at the time that she was upset. So there was a misunderstanding and I’m really sorry. We’ve talked since and she’s been really nice to me but now I feel tension and I don’t want to because I don’t want to get attached to her like I do with everybody. I want to grow up and look at all situations perceptively – the way I think Ms. Fetters does. I hope things will continue as they were for us because I do enjoy the intellectual talks she has shared with me. I say not me with her because she is much smarter than I am. And I enjoy when things run a little deeper too. She is an interesting and good person and I hope her life turns out okay for her. I also think she’s pretty. And I yet have not asked her if she has a religion and how her father is. That is something I’ve been thinking about all year. Her father had a major heart attack in late September and I never heard about him since. She’s spoken about her mother though. I think I’ll ask Mrs. C. or Mr. A. Anyway, Ms. Fetters is a complex person and I think I can deal with that. I am too and I can’t deal with me but I think I will learn something from Ms. Fetters.
posted by Grand Inquisitor at 8:33 AM
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