2017 was the worst year of my life. I was a senior in high school. My undiagnosed OCD had completely overtaken my life, and I was barely hanging onto the strings of functional existence. I write a lot about that year, because it means so much to me in a terrible way. I will write more about it on here, and it will probably be among the most vulnerable I can get.
I often stumble across ephemera from that era of my life and am sent spiraling into something that doesn’t feel quite like nostalgia, because I don’t miss it, but it also makes me happy because I know I’m not there anymore. I found an old digital diary entry from sometime in my second semester of that year, and thought it may be worth sharing.
At the time, I had no friends. Like really, it was so cliche - I ate lunch alone in the bathroom every day, or sometimes with some nice girls I had a class project with in our AP Literature teacher’s room if it was a really good day. A few times I would eat lunch with the girl who would be my prom date, who I did not acknowledge I had a huge crush on until probably 3 or 4 years later.
My sentience was held together so loosely by the bareboned interactions I had with a small set of characters, my interactions with which I started to document meticulously. I have journaled my entire life, and I write beautifully and poetically and record my feelings and thoughts and opinions. This is not one of those - this was clinical for me. It was an empirical record to prove to me that I’m still real and I feel things and I hadn’t fallen off the face of the planet and other people acknowledged my existence and I had been alive that day and there was a permanent record of it.
I share this entry for anyone else who has been like this, for anyone who thinks their experience with this is rare or shameful, for anyone who thinks their life will never improve from this point. I am 22 years old copying and pasting this snapshot of “the best day in a long time” from the worst point in my life, written when I was a child. Thing are different. Not always better, but definitely more often than not.
I haven’t changed anyone’s names because honestly I hope they know how much they mean to me.
So here you go, my day sometime in the spring of 2017:
Monday, April 16
I looked good today. It was raining very hard, so I wore my ugly pair of sneakers until I got to school, where I ran into the bathroom and changed into my new pair of very white sneakers. I ate two slices of the cold leftover Domino’s pizza during first period. I then ate the last slice during third period, wherein Eva Zimney watched me eat it and decided to order two large cheese pizzas to be delivered to our classroom. Everyone gave her a standing ovation when the pizzas arrived.
Izzy texted me at lunch. She told me that she cut ties with all her old fake friends, and was wondering if I wanted to hang out sometime because she needs more genuine people in her life. This made me very happy, and I said ‘yes of course!’
When the lunch bell rang, I overheard Susana ask CC if she had anyone to get lunch with, to which CC replied ‘no’, so they hugged and decided to have lunch together and Susana was very excited. I said I also didn’t have anyone to have lunch with, and Susana was even happier now and she hugged me too, which made me feel welcome and relevant. We ate in a classroom and talked the whole time, although I don’t remember a single thing we said.
Then I walked to calculus with Susana, where she told me that Ford, the kid who sits across from us and has a very weird voice, had asked her out on several occasions. One time I ran into them walking to his car together, and Susana told me today that that was on their second “date” to the zoo. However, I shouldn’t really call it a date because Susana says she 100% does not like him back. She also told me that he grows shrooms in his backyard.
After school, I put on extra eyeliner and lined my lips and took photos by the window. None of them turned out well. I think I am getting very ugly, and I’m not sure why.
Izzy’s text made me very happy because: it makes me feel like I am an important part of her support network, she told me I am a genuine person, it is nice to know there is someone who seeks me out as a positive force in their life. Susana and CC eating lunch with me made me feel very happy because: it is good to know I am not the only one who eats lunch alone a lot (although I usually eat it in the bathroom, whereas Susana says she usually goes for the library), it is good to have friends, it is good to spend lunch talking with people I like. Susana sharing a secret with me made me happy because: it is nice to feel close to someone, I think it means she trusts me, and it was very funny.
Overall, today was one of the best days I’ve had in a very long time. Hopeful for tomorrow.
When you said “hopeful for tomorrow” 🥹 I hope younger Abby would be proud and content to see you now, helping other people who feel the same way. Talking about intricate thoughts that we all were convinced made us evil and unloveable, anyway I loved this! Especially the diary entry that’s such a prolific idea, I felt truly in the mind of senior year Abby.
i love the way you write so much. that feeling of nostalgia being connected to a time you would never go back to is a confusing one i get all the time and it’s cool to be reminded that i am not always alone in the way i feel. thank you for sharing <3