So here I am, making a blog. I’ve got Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and now even Google+, yet somehow, the purpose of this online outlet of self-expression already far exceeds those of my other social media websites. Sure, I like to log on to Facebook and stalk some people that I never talk to, pretend that they’re my friends, who doesn’t? And, yeah, I tweet several times throughout the day because I have to update my 178 followers every single time I eat, obviously they are very concerned for my well-being. But this…I am already anticipating writing my next post and I’ve yet to even finish the first paragraph of my first post.

To be absolutely honest, I could care less who reads this. Alright, granted I would appreciate it if at least one person would read it, but, the thing is, I really don’t have any preference as to who that one person is. The entire purpose of this blog is for me to put my passion for writing out in the open and for me to have an outlet that’s a little more professional than a Facebook status or a Twitter rant. By writing for an audience (regardless of how big or small), my writing takes me in an entirely different direction. I am able to reflect back onto something I have written and literally not be able to comprehend that I actually wrote it. That’s what I love about writing- you really have no idea what the end product is going to be until you’re completely done and reading the finished copy.

Upon coming home from school, my room was not the pristine condition I had left it in, but was still suffering from its use as the guest bedroom while I was gone. Naturally, instead of re-organizing all of my nick-nacks back to where they belonged (in their organized piles under my bed, of course), I went to town perusing through all of my high school treasures. It’s not like this was something new for me, I actually do this quite frequently. I have a thing for nostalgia and I already foresee myself ending up on one of those hoarder shows where the old woman is slowly dying because she can’t seem to get rid of anything. Anyway, going through my childhood things, I found a great deal of exciting items and collections. I tended to have an incredibly creative side, and a majority of the things I have kept from elementary school through high school are arts and crafts projects. Some notable homemade items include: iPod mini cases constructed out of duct tape, a million and one friendship bracelets, and a binder full of magazine collages. But the most important things that I found, which I plan on never getting rid of until the day I die, are my composition notebook summer journals.

I started writing daily in my first summer journal during the summer of 2003. At first, I had to give myself a strict set of rules for writing in my journal: I had to write at least one page, every single day, and it had to be before midnight, or else it would count as the next day’s page. I know, it seems a little much for someone who had just finished the 6th grade, but the rules seemed to have worked, because I soon began writing more than a page, and sometimes, more than once a day. The topics which I chose to write about were always very serious, ranging from how much money I made babysitting for my neighbors at the pool, to providing the full names of all 16 people I saw at the pool (this was a recurring topic), to descriptions of what every shirt I bought at Abercrombie that day looked like, etc,. On more than one occasion, I decide to divulge into my deeply confusing romantic life. For the sake of you understanding the seriousness of my day-to-day boy issues, I will provide a short excerpt from July 23rd, 2003:

“Right then and there I realized that Billy-Bob is really hot! Like, really! So, we followed him for a while around the pool, and I think he noticed! So finally, the girls got in a fight with the guys over the soccer and basketballs. You know what too, I can actually have fun and play with a guy! Guess which guy? Joe-Schmo! Did I tell you that one day two years ago we both decided and officially declared that we were friends? We even shook hands! He’s really hot!”

Obviously, I changed the names for fear of these men ever finding out how deeply in love I was with each of them. Most entries during my middle school days were very similar to this. Although, I do recognize a kind of reporter’s writing style seeing as I would report the entire day’s events to my journal, oftentimes unbiased. Maybe I can use my description of the 7th grade dance at the community center as a writing sample for future job applications.

It’s when I hit high-school that my journal entries really started to get interesting. I spent my freshman year at an all-girls Catholic private school with a class-size of 50 girls; clearly I was just swimming in the fishbowl of diversity. It was also right after freshman year when I discovered that I suffered from ADD. In my mind, I thought I was just more fun than all of my classmates, but in reality, I couldn’t focus on one thing at a time if my life depended on it. Consequentially, many journal entries include me breaking out into Fall Out Boy lyrics and draining on about how Zac Efron and I were soul mates and how I knew we were going to meet one day. Another fun fact from freshman year: I was desperate to be an actress. I absolute needed to make it onto Disney Channel or I did not feel as if my life was worth living. It was the summer before 9th grade that I went to see Aly & AJ in concert and some no-name band that called themselves The Jonas Brothers opened up for them and had a meet-and-greet. From that day, June 16, 2006, and forward, my obsession with Jonas Brothers would reach disturbing heights. Most pages of my journal are covered with the various things I liked about each one of them and how I would DIE if I didn’t see them again soon. I also began to sign off each entry with an acronym, that of which I have spent the past 20 minutes trying to figure out what exactly it stood for. There is a ‘JB’ in the middle of it, so I have deciphered that it has something to do with the Jonas Brothers, but that’s as far as I got.

If you’ve made it this far in the post, I commend you, for you have stuck with me from 7th to 9th grade, which we all know are the dark ages in one’s adolescence. My posts from now on will not only be about my middle school years, although I am sure I will dive back into those waters every now and then. I will also not use this blog the same way I used my journals, by pouring out every detail of my day, naming names, and signing off with an acronym about how I plan on seducing all three Jonas brothers. It is just so entertaining to me to be able to look back only 6 years ago and see what my life was. Sure, I can look at pictures and guess that I must have been having a good time, or remember having a blast at that one concert with my friends; but being able to read what my exact thoughts were and how my mind interpreted everything that was going on in my life at a certain time, that’s something that I truly cherish.

I was unsure of where exactly I’d be going with this post, but I’m happy with where my writing took it. It is so much better to just sit back and let your fingers and your thoughts do the work for you than to try and stick to guidelines and have a predetermined destination. Hopefully this blog will be similar to my summer journals in that I will write about exactly what is on my mind; however, I’m hoping I’ll be able to do it without forcing rules upon myself and maybe writing with a little more eloquence. Just maybe.