Means to an End

Dear Diary,

No, that sounds stupid, sounds like something a kid would write, and by kid I mean somebody immature, childish. So no. No Dear Diary. No diary of any sort. Besides, journal sounds so much more elegant; it’s a word with potential. Children don’t keep journals; adults do. I’m an adult, but you don’t need to know how adult I am. I mean, my age doesn’t matter. I don’t need legal consent to speak Or write).

Because I am an adult, and thus am very mature, I have set myself a challenge. It’s an idea I ran into while reading a magazine in the doctor’s office. The idea is simple: it says to establish a goal that you have yet to attain, and to reach that goal. Good for self-esteem, self-confidence, ego-building things like that. Just identify that important goal and work at it. Make it reasonable and choose something that will make a difference in your life. You may not see how it will, or when, but it will.

For some reason, I have decided to accept the challenge of setting a goal. Maybe it was because I have been having some real issues with depression - don’t we all, once in awhile? - and the promise of putting my mood on an upward swing was appealing. You might also need to know that I occasionally have trouble with focus, so I mean to set myself up for success by selecting only one goal. That is likely not going to happen.

My goal began as that of keeping a journal for a month. That had meant writing every day, according to the article on mental fitness where I read about it, although the daily part had a little wiggle room. A couple of days without entries would not create barriers to reaching the goal. After a month, maybe the journal can be continued. Since I still have hopes of becoming famous as well as rich, the journal might ultimately become a source of information for scholars researching my life and work. (That last part is just me trying to be funny.)

Might, I said, might become a source of information. The problem is, I’m really struggling to meet the goal I’ve set because I am already bored with writing about the daily weather, what I had to eat, errands that had to be run. It’s all too vague and, as I’ve already noted, boring. Therefore, since the journal belongs to me, I’m going to give it a focus. Something I’ve wanted to do for a long time… to be able to give my complete attention to something. 

So here’s what I’ve decided: 

I’m old enough to be able to look back on exchanges with a lot of people and speak the language called hindsight. We all know it, but when most of us refer to it we’re lamenting not having said or done something at a key moment. Or maybe it’s not a moment but a longer period of time we only understand much later. This will be my hindsight journal, then, but with the focus I need. I think I’ve made that more than clear?

I need to tell a few people what I think of them instead of smiling politely and leaving. This will be hard, but only the pages in my journal need to know what I’ve written in them. If that researcher - scholar comes along one day, so be it. I will use fictitious names so nobody will know to whom I’m referring. Completely anonymous. I as author working under a pseudonym, will feel the relief of telling a person to his or her or their face what I really think. Think free!

MY JOURNAL 

Day 1

Bill, I know a lot of things about you that you wouldn’t think I know. I know you were seen at a rest stop on I-95 with Ron. (Nobody cares about that but you, you fool.) I also know you tampered with people’s mail in the department. You don’t have an honest word in your mouth. You’re not very smart, either.

Day 2

Joe, you’re lazy. I saw you when you hired a student to correct the twenty exams for the class. That is illegal.

Day 3

Lee, I said something today that you didn’t hear, but instead of asking me to repeat it, you literally screamed my head off. That’s abusive and I’m thinking of reporting you.

Day 4

Dana, once at a get-together I referred to a tapas bar as a fund-raiser for the library. You, elegant, culture, homely, and well-off as you are, understood me to say topless bar. Right. They probably didn’t speak much Spanish at your previous place of employment.

Day 4

Ali, you are not God’s gift to academe. You’re not a gift at anybody, despite your false curriculum vitae. The Deans and the rest of the administration will want to know about that.

Day 5

Matty, you were nice to me when you needed a little money. Such a honeyed voice. Five minutes later, you were screaming at me and I didn’t know why.

Day 6

Bobo, you think I’m losing my memory. I’m not. What you say makes me think before responding, precisely because I don’t like what you are saying and am trying not to explode.

Day 7

Bill, I can prove you have discriminated against me and have been the master of gaslighting from day one. Details available, photos as well as recordings.

Day 8

Al, I saw your son’s black eye. He didn’t get it in a sports match.

Day 9

Til, you said you had a great cultural concept and excitedly told me what you were going to call it. Do you think I’m an idiot? I explained the same idea to you two weeks ago.

Day 10

Nik, you keep telling me everything’s in God’s hands. You have visions and God guides you. 

Day 11

Nan, you never told me a thing about growing up, the body, or balancing a checkbook. 

Day 12

Lu, you childish monster. You tickled me until I cried. You left your pieces in the starting space for Chinese checkers, just so I couldn’t win.

Day 13

Lee, you called me a (expletive) person. Do you know how much that hurt? I thought you loved me.

Day 14

Freddy, you smoke too much and eat like there’s no tomorrow. You’ll be dead before you’re sixty.

Day 15

Nan, you’re more Catholic than the Pope.

Day 16

Anna, you are the most racist person I know. I want to know how you learned to think that way, given how religious you are. I really want to know.

Day 17

Nan, didn’t you see what they were doing to you? You can’t be that oblivious. 

Day 18

K, you felt you could just walk away, leave, disappear, so you did? Lowest of the low.

Day 19

Ed, I swallowed everything whole and you are to blame. Words, birds, tombs, confusion, anger, disease, the whole nine yards. Shakespeare is Shakespeare, but you are you and get a flower on your grave every year. I hate that you haunt me like this. I want to destroy every version of you: paperback, hardcover, ebook, audiobook, graphic novel or kids’ version. 

Day 20

Ed, you killed, died, allowed others to die, so many time. You could have taken all those deaths with you and left me free, not depressed, intensely medicated…

Day 21

Ed, you have led me to this impasse, have erected this wall behind which I will not partake of your precious Amontillado, and will never let me go.

Day 22

Ed, I don’t mind. It was - is - destiny. I went to the doctor hoping for my psychological weariness and my nerves, which obviously are responsible for my depression, and I found the magazine with the article on setting a goal. Well, my journal goal led me to you even if it took me nineteen days.

Day 23

Ed, I might actually reach my objective of keeping a journal for a month. However, I’m going to forget about the ones who’ve made me think about all the mean things I’d like to say to them now. I’d rather spend the time with you.

Day 24

Ed, all right?

Day 25

Ed, I’m just going to curl up beside this barrel and wait. 

Day 26

Maybe you’ll come back and help me deal with the other people mentioned in this journal. OK, Ed?

Day 27

Ed, I hear something.

Day 28

It’s damp. Cold.

Day 29

It’s pitch black. I can’t see to write.

Day 30

Ed.