The "Welcome to Puberty" Present

Dear Diary,

Why do they call you “diary?” What does that word even mean? When my dad gave you to me for my 12^th birthday as a “welcome to puberty” gift (wtf?!), I didn’t know what to do with you. I’ve never had a diary before. When Amal showed me her pink fuzzy diary with the heart-shaped golden lock on it, I told her it was a stupid girl thing and I didn’t want to be a stupid girl. She cried afterwards and I felt bad.

So, when I got my own “stupid girl” diary, I left you on the reject shelf by the window in my room, between “Girls Who Play Rugby” and “Diary of a Wimpy Kid.” I forgot about you for quite some time, despite your glaring fuchsia cover with a rhinestone spine. My favourite colour is green, btw. And I don’t like rhinestones. Nobody cool ever wears rhinestones, except maybe Taylor Swift.

Last Saturday, dad came into my room so that I could show him the maple syrup they gave us on the Sugar Shack field trip. I had just dumped my school bag upside down on the bed when I saw dad look towards the window. The bookshelf was glittering, and he got that look on his face. The same look he had whenever he looked at a photo of mom… after she died. It felt like there was a rock in my stomach.

That’s why I’m writing in you right now! I’m sitting at the kitchen table and dad is making pancakes. We always have pancakes on Sunday mornings. Then we watch rugby and then dad takes a nap while I go see Amal. And you know, diary, when he saw me open up your barf pink cover and start writing with the feathery pen you came with, I could see out of the corner of my eye that he smiled just a little. So I guess you’re not that bad. But I still wish I knew why they call you “diary.”

Dear Jo,

That’s your new name, btw. I never understood the whole “diary” business so I’ve decided to dub thee Jo of the barf pink kingdom. Home of the cheap rhinestones. Hope you like it. Since everything else has been changing, I thought you shouldn’t be the exception.  You’re welcome.

Today is the last day of summer vacation… forever.   

Dad says that I should’ve chosen to major in drama rather than journalism. I would’ve agreed with him a year ago. But then 1^st semester of gr. 12, the drama teacher Mrs. Dougherty with the spotted dough face told me that my monologue was “passable” whereas my acting was not. She failed to see that a sleep talking scene’s focal point was the “talking in your sleep” part. There are only so many variations of “sleeping” that I can do. Amal thought my acting was funny. So did the other kids in the class. OH WELL.  

ANYWAYS. I’m off to university tomorrow. Dad is driving me to my new school in the big city. I was packing my bags and noticed you there, in the corner, glittering away, half of your pages blank and yellowing at the edges. I started reading the thoughts of my 12 years old self (barf) and started to feel homesick? (How can anyone feel homesick before they’ve already left?)

If I’m being honest, I’m a little scared to leave dad all by himself. It’s always just been the two of us. Who else is going to eat his awful pancakes, lie about how good they are, and watch 4 hours of rugby reruns on a Sunday morning? NO ONE. I did try to get him to go on a date with Mrs. Langley across the street, after her husband left her for his Chinese ESL student of course, but no luck. They went out on ONE date and then dad came home and said, “Nobody in this country appreciates rugby.”

WELL DUH.

Hey Jo, this is actually kind of fun. I think I didn’t have enough feelings at 12 to use a diary properly but I have a feeling that I’m going to have a lot of emotions after tomorrow. Maybe I’ll tuck you into my suitcase and bring you to the city with me. I might have to keep you in a secret box full of embarrassing things I don’t want my roommate to see. But I promise to take you out once in a while when I’m alone.

Waddya say? (Except you can’t say, because you are an inanimate object.)

Dear Jo,

The word “diary” comes from the latin word “dies” which means “day.” It’s pronounced dee-es instead of how it looks like it should be pronounced – dies. I saw that in the “fun facts” section of the Coffee Times newsletter hanging from the tired yellow counter at Mike’s Coffees.

You were meant to be an account of daily events – it’s in your etymology. You probably only had enough pages to account for 4 months of a person’s daily life. Yet somehow, you are still with me 20 years later.

Your fuchsia cover has dulled, and the rhinestones are chipped and scratched. The pages are yellowed, and I think I lost that feather pen somewhere within the first year. Age does that – it changes things incrementally so that you don’t notice its occurrence until everything has seemingly fallen apart overnight.

Today is the last day I am writing in you, dear Jo, dear diary. I’ve decided that I want to put you into the incinerator alongside dad’s casket so that he won’t feel quite so alone. That man has been alone for most of my life so it’s the least I can do. But as much as he might have carried that loneliness that cast a shadow on our lives after mom’s passing, he always made sure I always looked towards the sun.

I asked him once, about you. The idea of a puberty present was so outrageous that I think I pitched 3 stories successfully based on that anecdote. He said that he thought I had wanted a girly diary because of that time I came home and ranted about Amal’s fuzzy one. It was his way of being two parents at once.

He never knew that I had taken you to university. He always assumed I had grown out of you. I was never home long enough for him to ask. And I had mostly forgotten about you, dear Jo, hidden inside a box somewhere in my dorm room, then in my first apartment, until I found you again when I moved into my own condo. There you were, preserved in an old shoe box with forgotten notes from exes and plastic mementos from another life. Will you ever forgive me?

When dad got sick, I moved back home and showed you to him. He was so shocked that he started laughing and crying at the same time.

“What are you still doing that old thing little bird?”

The last Sunday before his passing, I made blueberry pancakes while he was watching rugby. Afterwards, I sat at the kitchen counter and flipped through your pages until I found the last few blank ones. As I wrote, out of the corner of my eye I could see dad smiling as the plastic rhinestones glittered in the sun.