rereading_old_journals epitome of incomprehensibility Thoughts on reading a diary from 2014-2015: -I haven't changed much in ten years. -This is a problem. I should have changed more. I'm too stagnant. -No, I've changed too much. I used to be a quicker thinker. Look, here I am explaining a math thing that I don't understand anymore. -Well, it's because I was tutoring math then. You learn from what you do. Sure, maybe my job-related expertise is pretty narrow at the moment, mostly about preparing teachers for their qualifying test in Quebec, but I *can* learn things even if I'm not 25. ...Wait, I was 26 then. -Oh, oh, oh, I've also changed in a good way: I'm pretty sure I'm less annoying now. And I manage at least some of my feelings better. That's progress, isn't it? ...And I also think Dad learned similar things in these ten years, from what I read about his grumbling at me for being distracted during an all-hands-on-deck clean-up day, when he something like "Either help or stay out of the way - don't pretend you're doing something and then ignore it" when I WAS working, just not consistently. He wouldn't say that now. He understands me better and he's more patient. So you can also improve your behaviour and understanding when you're over 65 - there's not necessarily a time limit on that. Stereotype of grumpy old people notwithstanding. But don't they have a lot to be grumpy about sometimes, with more physical weaknesses and pains? So how do I know I won't let those things overwhelm me? ...Practice dealing with the problems you have now. Practice. 250911 ... e_o_i I also found records of dreams that ended up on blather and/or in my poem "And in Dreams" that will be *officially* published next Sunday (yay!) One dream described opening and closing doors to confuse a chasing minotaur. (They're good with mazes, but doors confuse them.) 250911 ... ovenbird This is one of my favourite things about old journals—the ability to see how much of your core self has stayed stable through the years and what pieces of you have shifted and changed. I find that I still recognize myself in the journals I wrote at 11 years old. It’s shocking how little has changed, but it’s also fascinating to see how the events of my life have shaped who I’ve become. 250911 ... nr i have an old diary that i wrote sporadically in when i was about 9, 12, 16, and 19. one of the entries at 12 says "also, [e] talked to [g] today on the EYENET (mr. t. discovered that for us) and she hopes he likes her. he's majorly cute, and i danced with him at the school dance before yesterday. EYENET is where u communicate with people/on your phone through the phone lines." the diary is an antique! 250911 ... nr most of what i wrote when i was 19 still rings true today, and i was surprised to remember i'd considered these same things over 20 years ago. 250911 ... that was meant to say "with people on your computer through the phone lines." 250911 ... raze mine exist in piecemeal form, incomplete and sometimes inaccessible (like the abandoned high_school journal trapped on an old floppy disk). there are notes i wrote myself that survive. one when i was thirteen about wanting to get a guitar. one when i was eighteen about wanting to die. but most of what i'd really like to read now was either never written or it got lost somewhere along the way. i wish i still had an adolescent digital diary entry about a new_friend i would never see again, made and mislaid so many years ago, if only to remember who i was then. 250911 what's it to you? who go blather from