Finding Treasures in my Preteen Journal

While dictating and typing my journal into a Word document, I am discovering interesting themes in my preteen life. I see linguistic features of a preteen, emotional ups and downs, and how my family showed love toward me.

Dictation Oddities

Putting together poems for a potential anthology, I opened my journals to read the backstory. In the process, I chose to type my journals since I had to read them anyway. Because I can't keep my journal open and type at the same time, my husband suggested the dictation feature in Word. I tried it out and it mostly works.

I discovered some quirks dictating numbers and punctuation marks. While recording the date, the software will type numbers randomly in a number/word combination. Thus, I type the date. I don't see any pattern as to why it chooses the symbol or word. Number homophones are challenging for the computer too. For example, "ate" becomes "8" when it isn't next to a food word.

For punctuation, the dictation won't change parenthesis or quotation marks into punctuation, but it recognizes words like comma, period, and exclamation point. Sometimes period is recorded as the word and not the mark. MS Word will sometimes leave a space before a period too.

Names are a nightmare to record if they are not common or not the common spelling. I have two friends' names that have unique spellings. Those have to be changed by hand. One name records in two or three variations, Millera, Llera, etc. My sister's nickname is a homophone, which the dictation software never gets right. I doubt it ever will because it isn't a standard name. Sometimes I use the find feature to change multiple names back to the correct spelling.

I probably could work out several of these bugs, but I am too lazy to figure it out. I may or may not do it within the next week, month, or year.

Linguistically Speaking

I spelled my way to state level my sixth-grade year, yet I find many interesting spellings in my journal. My favorite is "doddled" or "doodled" for "dawdled." I frequently "doddled." I misspell "i before e" words often, especially piece and receive. Another word that has always stumped me is opportunity and Cincinnati.

Some interesting punctuation features include my obsession with ALL CAPS, parentheses, brackets, and excessive exclamation points. I counted 20 exclamation points after one word. Think I got my point across? I often put ANNOYED in all caps. My writing tended to be parenthetical, and it is still parenthetical. I noticed dictation mode won't add parentheses, instead, it spells out the word. So I gave up on adding parentheses (and brackets) while dictating. I add the parentheses, brackets, and ALL CAPS while revising.

ANNOYED

I record being annoyed almost every day in my journal. I mentioned this and the general negativity in my journal on a social media post. My friends mentioned how they often only record negative events to process them, which makes sense. One friend said it described her preteen daughter. Consequently, annoyed would describe my teenage son too.

According to my preteen self, everyone was annoying, especially middle school boys, my cousin who lived with us, my siblings, and my parents.

The boys qualified for a special category of annoying, which is laughable now. Being from a small town, most of the boys were in my church class, my German class, and other school classes. Some called me a robot or coppertop. One or two hit me. One boy swore at me when I asked him to dance. But then there was one boy who was the knight in shining armor that I mention over and over again. Generally, the knight in shining armor changed every year.

Most of these annoying boys changed attitudes in high school. They went from being mean to very nice. We girls suddenly changed to potential dates and girlfriends. Currently, I am friends on social media with most of these "boys," their wives, or their parents.

The Mundane

In my journal, I listed every step I took during the day. I thought it was a terrible idea to list every step in my day when I grew older, but it's interesting to read details that I would have otherwise forgotten. At the beginning of the journal, I wrote details in long sentences. After a few months, I shortened it to one or two words for the beginning and end of my day, e.g. "woke up, thought, ate, scriptures, showered, groomed, went to school" and "read, this, bed, bye!"

Mood Swings

I recognize patterns in my undiagnosed bipolar from my journal. I am a rapid cycler, which I see in my descriptions of feeling mad, sad, annoyed, and happy in quick succession. In one entry, I mentioned how I was having one of my "BIG" emotions. Now I call those emotional moments my "bipolar moments." I displayed these emotions toward my family and friends of disliking them one moment and loving them the next.

For example, I enjoyed visiting with my sister one day of Christmas Break, but I yelled at her the next day. She had accidentally broken my CD cover while sitting on my bed. She probably came to see how I was after I had a trying day. My cousin had thrown food at me in the morning and schoolboys had thrown my school stuff across the hall. Yet I recorded how "RUDE" she was along with those "horrid boys."

I wrote poems to deal with my mood swings. Many times I wrote of loneliness, yet I had friends and family support me. I isolated myself without realizing it. I wonder if it was my bipolar, hormones, or undeveloped brain that blinded me from recognizing the love others showed me despite the meanness or indifference of others.

My Love of Amy Grant Music Interrupted by Limbaugh

I listed every time I listened to a different music artist multiple times in a day. Amy Grant and 80s ballads made the top lists. The conundrum was having access to the CD player. Before my sister moved away to college, we had her stereo system. Then there was only my parent's CD player in their room. So one day when I stayed home sick, I complained that I had to relinquish the stereo to my dad during his lunch hour.

My dad had turned my Amy Grant music off to listen to Rush Limbaugh. I had occasionally listened to AM radio with my parents, but I wanted my music at that moment. For some reason, my dad thought he should have control over his possessions. And my parents often set the car radio to Rush Limbaugh, Dr. Laura, or other AM radio talk shows. These shows tortured me to the point of head pain because Limbaugh and others talked so loudly (or my dad turned the volume too high). Ironically, I dictated this journal entry about a week before Rush Limbaugh died. I am sad to see such a notoriously loved (and hated) man pass away--especially from cancer.

When my family traveled to the nearest Walmart 90 miles away, I begged my mom for a CD player. I wrote:

I fought (words) my mom over me getting a present. I need a bike and want a CD player. My mom said to find something under $50 for a present. I looked through the CD players. I had my mom come and see what I wanted. (A CD player for $78.96 [about]). My mom said to get a tape player. I said “NO!” I said to let me go back to the car so they could buy me a present. I went out when my mom was buying everyone else presents.

I rode home mad. Listened to Amy Grant Heart in Motion [on a Walkman].

Well, I didn't get a CD player for Christmas, so I resorted to recording CDs to tape. I never mentioned what my Christmas presents were, but I didn't seem disappointed according to my journal.

Feeling the Love

In the subtext, I recognize how much my family and friends truly loved me. My sister recognized I had a bad day and came to talk, but I became angry when she broke my CD case. My brother gave me two Amy Grant CDs without me ever asking him. My mom and dad gave me rides home from school almost every day. My mom brought me dinner during play practice. And the list goes on.

I record how often I looked forward to spending time with my friends at school. We laughed during class and play practices. I talked with "Millera" and my other friends at school, play practice, and tryouts. I looked up to a girl the grade above me because she brought so much fun to play practice. Overall, I remember the giggles more than the loneliness.

What do you remember from middle school? Do you recognize how others loved you despite not recognizing their love then?

This post is on Medium and my personal blog.

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