The Journal
John Mancini
Copyright 2010 by John Mancini
Smashwords Edition
The Journal
Part One
How long have I been sleeping
how long have I been drifting alone through the night
how long have I been dreaming I could make it right
if I closed my eyes and tried with all my might
-Jackson Browne
July 16, 2001
The first thing I would like noted for the official record, your honor, is that this assignment was NOT my idea.
OK, in the spirit of at least trying to do this assignment let me start with the basics.
My name is Sarah Middleton. Up until a few weeks ago, I was an eighth grader at Herndon Middle School. Now I am a "rising freshman" as they say. I don't quite know what this means. What I do know is that right now I feel like I am exactly nowhere. Not in middle school anymore, but not quite in high school either.
The reason I am writing in this journal in the first place is that I have a summer reading assignment. I haven't even gone to high school yet, and they are already giving me work.
Our assignment is this. We have to read The Diary of Anne Frank. As if that wasn't bad enough. What on earth do the great English teacher gods think they are accomplishing by assigning us to read a kid's diary from 60 years ago? But to make it even worse, we are supposed to keep our own diary or journal all summer. The idea is that we are supposed to take a quote from the Anne Frank diary each night as we're reading it, and then write about it or anything else we want to write about. I guess they think that by making us pick a quote each time, that maybe by mistake we'll actually read parts of the Anne Frank thing.
They said in the assignment that the new teacher - who I haven't even met yet and is already making demands on me - is not going to actually read these journals. They said he's going to leaf through them, see if we have any quotes at the beginning of each entry, and that's it. They said they're not trying to grade anything, just get us thinking about "ourselves and the world we live in."
Yeah, right. Like I believe that. There's no way I'm going to put anything personal in this thing in case anyone else gets hold of it. Here's what I might do. I got this idea from the movie, might do. I got this idea from the movie, The Shining, which was on TV the other night. I could start each page with a quote, but then write "All work and no play make Jack a dull boy" hundreds and thousands and millions of times just like Jack Nicholson did in the movie. And then when the English teacher looks through the journal, maybe he'll really freak out just like that skinny actress did in the movie when she found Jack Nicholson's book.
But then again, I probably won't do that. You probably don't know this, but I am a big talker. But slow to actually do the things I sometimes talk about. If only my parents could figure that out, maybe they wouldn't hassle me so much.
I guess that's enough for today. Especially since this section probably doesn't count for credit since there's no quote in it. So enough! Tomorrow a quote!
July 18, 2001
I guess I am violating the first rule of this assignment by not starting it out with a quote.
I'll start it out a little differently. It says in the book that Anne started keeping her diary, and then after a couple of years, heard a radio broadcast in which the Dutch government in exile said they were hoping to someday gather stories of people in hiding and then publish them. The book says that when Anne heard that she imagined that someday maybe her diary would be published.
Well, I have a-couple of things to say about that.
First, how weird is it that that is exactly what happened? I wonder if thinking about the fact that it might be published changed the way she wrote the diary. I guess I'll know a little more if and when I actually read it! I know it would definitely make a difference with me. There's no way I would want what I really think about some things to be published.
It says that's why she used fake names for some of the people in the book. It seems like that would be a pretty good idea. Because you can never quite tell how people will react, even if you're telling the truth.
That won't be the case with this diary, though, because a) I'm not going to write anything personal in it; and b) once this assignment is over and the teacher knows I've done it I'm going to burn this journal in case by mistake I do put something personal in it.
Here's another thing I wonder about. Would Anne have written what she did if she knew she was going to die in the end? We know the end of the story; she didn't. I wonder if she had any idea that in the end, all the world would know about her would be a few pictures and the diary. It seems a strange thing that her life should just come down to that.
But I guess that's more than some people get. I remember when my grandfather died. I was four years old and I can remember a little bit about going to his funeral. But I seem to remember less and less each year, until now it seems like he is just a guy who shows up in some pictures around the house.
He must have been more than that, but now nobody knows it. I mean, he must have had things that made him laugh, or opinions about something - anything - or something that made him unique. But heck if I know.
So maybe Anne didn't have it so bad after all. No, that doesn't sound right. I don't mean that it didn't stink to die, obviously. What I mean is that here we are, 60 years later, and a bunch of kids who will be freshmen at Herndon High School have to spend the summer reading her diary and writing in a journal. That seems important. At least it's written down. I don't know hardly anything detailed about my grandfather. I guess when you come down to it, I don't really know a lot about my own parents and what actually matters to them. Other than, of course, that they love to boss me around.
I better stop this now and actually read a little bit in this book. I probably won't get any credit for just reading the forward.
July 22, 2001
Today's Anne Frank Quote: Writing in a diary is a really strange experience for me. Not only because I've never written anything before, but also because it seems 10 me that later on neither I nor anyone else will be interested in the musings of a 13 year old girl.
That seems to me to be as good a place as any to start.
I think it is pretty weird writing in a journal, too. Anne did pretty well for herself if this is the first thing she ever wrote and then wound up getting it published.
I wonder if she had lived after the war whether she would have written anything else. Or also if she hadn't been killed in the war - I don't know yet how, only that she died - whether her book would have been so famous. Or whether everyone would have said, "Oh, it's just a bunch of nonsense by some 13 year old kid."
I think sometimes when I say things my parents just nod their heads as if they hear me, but they are really not paying any attention to me at all. When I want to go out with my friends and stay out kind of late (like maybe 10!) they imagine all sorts of things going on, when really we're not doing much of anything. If they only knew what actually goes on.
Here's what I think they imagine. We go to somebody's house. We sneak out the bathroom window and hitchhike to the nearest bar. We meet a bunch of motorcycle guys with tattoos. They give us drinks and take us riding - without helmets, God forbid! - on the Beltway at 125 miles per hour. They get us back just in time to sneak back through the bathroom window, take 23 breath mints, and get picked up at 10.
Here's what really happens. We go to somebody's house. We watch movies. We drink Cokes. Sometimes we make prank calls to boys. We go home.
OK. I will make a personal confession right here in this journal. I am a little odd. Some might consider me a bit of a nerd. I don't have a ton of friends. Sometimes I got the feeling last year that the other kids at school were trying to keep their distance. The year didn't start out that way. I wonder, did I change, or did they?
There is an old TV show - Wonder Years- that we recorded on tape that sometimes we watch when we're on long trips. There is one episode about this girl named Margaret Farquar. She was the goofiest kid in the school. Everybody made fun of her. She wore her hair in three strange pigtails. She liked bats.
At the end of the episode, they had a shot of her picture in the yearbook. Kevin Arnold, who is the main character, is looking back at this strange character once he's an adult, and now that he knows how she eventually turned out. He says something like, "Margaret Farquar. PhD in Biology. Mother of Six. And lover of bats."
Here are the things that I do that some people consider a little weird. You be the judge. Who is weirder, me or Margaret Farquar?
#1 - I am in the band.
#2 - I am in the math club.
#3 - Sometimes I wear 2 different colored socks to see what people will do.
#4 - Sometimes I talk to myself or hum at inappropriate times.
#5 - I am the worst person alive in every single sport that has ever been invented. I am sure that if I sat down tonight and invented a new sport that involved marching in a band in a uniform with 2 different socks while doing math equations and humming, and then they picked teams for this tomorrow in gym, I would still be the last one picked.
I wish I had a crystal ball and could see what people will say about me 20 years from now, or at least that things will turn out OK. I hope it doesn't tum out something like, "Sarah Middleton. Loony bin. Hums incessantly. Wears a band uniform 7x24."
One way TV is better than real life: Everything is always worked out in 30 minutes.
July 27, 2001
Today's Anne Frank Quote: Daddy's always so nice. He understands me perfectly, and I wish we could have a heart to heart talk sometime without me bursting instantly into tears.
One thing I am glad about is that my father does seem to understand me a whole lot better than my mother. I guess that's something Anne and I have in common.
It seems like Mom is constantly criticizing everything that I do. "Why didn't you make your bed?" "Are you going to wear your hair like that?' "Have you done your homework yet?" "Who were those people you were hanging out with?" It wasn't always like that - we used to do a lot of stuff together - but it sure has been bad lately.
My Dad is different. We still seem to get along, although lots of times he is really busy at work.
I think it might be because he was a little strange when he was young, too. I will say that if eighth grade yearbook pictures are any guide, he might have been even stranger than me. In his pictures, he has big black glasses and slicked back hair. And lots and lots of nice comments by teachers, and hardly any by kids.
Sometimes I think without my Dad in this house, I would go nuts.
My two sisters aren't much help. My older sister, Katy, is in college. She is going to be a junior at Penn State. She was always the one in our family who did everything right. Good grades. Popular. Cheerleader. She was voted "Best All Around Girl" when they do those yearbook things at the end of senior year. I am personally hoping to win the "Best Random Hummer" award when I graduate from high school. I think my Mom wishes that I were more like Katy.
My other sister, Chrissy, is going to be a senior at Herndon this year. She isn't as much of a student as Katy is, but she's the one that does all the "get elected" stuff. She was the junior class president and I guess she will also wind up being the senior class president. This means she will get her own parking space at the high school. She is president of the Keyette Club. I wouldn't be surprised in she wound up being a Member of Congress someday.
My Mom works downtown at a law firm. She took some time off when all of us were younger, but went back to work a couple of years ago. I guess she figured that once I got into the 6th grade I was OK on my own, but I think it's a gyp that she stayed home all the time Katy was in high school, and at least until Chrissy was in high school. But as usual I got the short end of the stick and she stayed home just barely through most of Dranesville Elementary. Maybe that's why I am so "unusual."
So you can see why it's hard to match my world-class band and math club skills against this set of female role models. Let's do a little comparison:
Major Accomplishments
Sarah
Band, eighth chair clarinet
Math team
Picked last, every team for last 8 years
Katy
Captain, Cheerleaders
"Best All-Around Girl”
Picked first for everything
Chrissy
President, Junior Class
President, Keyettes
Elected first in everything
I read one part in the Anne Frank diary last night and it said, "You can easily see the difference between the way they deal with Margot (that is her sister) and the way they deal with me." Amen to that, sister.
July 31, 2001
Today's Anne Frank Quote: I fell asleep with the strange feeling of wanting to be different than I want to be. or perhaps behaving differently than I am or want to be.
Dear Anne:
The astute reader (not that anyone will ever read this!) will note that I have started out a little differently than my other entries.
Anne always started out her entries "Dear Kitty." She thought it made things more personal and more like she was writing to a friend. So given that I'm starting to like this Anne character a little bit, I am going to pretend that I'm writing to her and that she's writing to me. And given that I could really use a best friend, that seems like a pretty good idea.
In order for this to work, we've got to pretend that we're both the same age at the actual time that I am writing this (in other words, 13). Because otherwise, I would be pretending that I am writing to a 72 year old woman, which would be just way too weird. So let's give this another try ...
Dear Anne:
I know what you mean when you say that you have this "strange feeling of wanting to be different" than you are.
We are so very much alike! Your big sister sounds a lot like either Katy or Chrissy. Everything comes so easy to them. It's like they just snap their fingers, and "poof," everyone thinks they are fabulous. When you say that "Margot's a stinker, a constant source of irritation, morning, noon, and night," I can tell you that sometimes I feel the exact same way about Katy and Chrissy. They don't mean it, but I feel like everybody is always comparing me to them. And that's not fun.
I also read last night that you were upset because your mother constantly picks fights with you and keeps complaining about even the smallest mistakes. I feel like you can read my mind. How can that be? I'm sitting here in Herndon, Virginia, in the United States, writing in English (or as close to English I ever get). You have been dead for 50 years, living in Amsterdam (by the way, why do some people call it The Netherlands and some people call it Holland?), and writing in Dutch I guess. (Looking at my last sentence, it seems a little weird, and don't take it personally about you being dead, but I think you know what I mean.)
Thank goodness I can still stand being around my father. He is the only one right now that I can stand being in the same room with.
Sometimes, Anne, I just don't know how I will manage to get through the next few years with this set of characters.
Your friend, Sarah
August 10, 2001
Today's Anne Frank Quote: The children in this neighborhood run around in their shirts and wooden shoes. They have no coats, no socks, no caps, and no one to help them.
Dear Anne:
Well, looking back over my last few entries (probably not a good idea, because reading what I write is just plain embarrassing!), I can tell you that I must be just about the most shallow person in the world.
I'm sorry it has been so long since my last communication, but I am on vacation. Which is I guess why I'm feeling a little bit guilty. OK, a lot guilty.
Ever since I can remember, we've gone to the same small town on the Outer Banks in North Carolina to go on vacation. It is really a great place. When you go to our beach, it doesn't look like much when you first go there. First of all, it takes a long time to get there. We always seem to get in bad traffic along the way. My Dad always says, ''This year we're going to leave at 6:00 a.m. and beat the traffic." My Mom rolls her eyes when he says this. We usually wind up leaving at 10:30 or so which drives him crazy.
The first sign that we're getting close is when you go across a long flat bridge into Nags Head. This is where the traffic gets real bad sometimes. My Dad always says the traffic is bad because of all the rich people going to Duck and Corolla. They all turn left once you get across the bridge, which is what ties things up. We go right.
We used to stop at a sub sandwich place named Zero's in Nags Head but we don't anymore because it is now called Bob's and there is a sign above the door that says, "Eat and Get the Hell Out." I think the sign is probably why we don't go there anymore. Once you go through Nags Head, you go across one more very big bridge and then it's just 40 or 50 miles more from there.
There is not much to do at our beach, but that's OK because that's the way we like it. When we're there, and sitting on the beach, especially real late in the day - about 7 o'clock - I can pretty much forget that I'm the square peg in this round hole family.
Once when I was about four years old, I was digging in the sand and found what looked like an old treasure map. It was on brown, stained paper. The date on the note was April 12, 1712 and the note was filled with all sorts of pirate phrases like. "Ahoy" and "Shiver me timbers."
I followed the map and it led me all over the beach. Up to the dunes.
Down towards the lighthouse. Back up the beach and back toward the shoreline. And then finally to a small dune and an X made of twigs.
When I got to the "X" I started digging, and came upon a treasure chest about8 inches long by 12 inches wide. Inside it were all sorts of treasures. Necklaces made of shells. Starfish. Shiny pink and blue and yellow polished mussel shells. There was even a pirate's eye patch and a sword.
I wouldn't tell anyone else this, but it wasn't until I was about 10 years old that I realized that Mom and Dad and Katy and Chrissy had planned the whole thing. I think about them now and sometimes wonder where they all have gone.
But what really gets me sad is that I sometimes think that little 5-year-old gir1 who was so innocent and happy is still waiting for me somewhere on that beach. But instead of walking toward her, I've turned my back and am walking away, very quickly. But toward what, I have no idea.
Your friend, Sarah
August 12, 2001
Today's Anne Frank Quote: The best remedy for those who are frightened, lonely, or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere they can be alone, alone with the sky, nature and God. For then and only then can you feel that everything is as it should be and that God wants people to be happy amid nature's beauty and simplicity.
Dear Anne:
We're still here at the Beach, and I still can't help but feel guilty about how much of a complainer I can be sometimes.
Today was one of those days at the beach that was just perfect. Instead of wanting the day to go by quickly, or just sleeping it away, I wanted to freeze it and just live there forever.
There wasn't much wind, but just enough to keep the big gigantic bumblebees away. Mom has been telling me my whole life that they don't sting, but I don't believe it. When one comes near, you're supposed to stay perfectly still and just let it move on. I try to do that, but after about 5 seconds I just freak out and run toward the water like a crazy person.
My Dad and I always play this game about him getting in the water. He pretends he doesn't want to. I beg him. He says, "Just a few more pages in my book." I wait a few minutes and he doesn't move and I beg again. He finally says, "Bring me 20 shells with purple" on them, and then I'll go in." Which I do, and then he finally gets in the water. We've been doing this for years.
He told me today that he likes to take the shells with him when he goes on business trips - of which there are far too many (business trips, not shells) - to remind him of the times when life is perfect.
That made me feel sad for all that you are going through. We live in such an easy time compared to yours. You are holed up in an attic, with annoying people all around you, afraid that if you made a noise or go outside you'll be dragged off to some concentration camp or get hit by a bomb or some other awful thing.
So I hereby resolve not to be such a whiner. And if I could see you now, I'd give you one of my Dad's purple shells to remind you that the hard times don't last forever.
Your friend, Sarah
August 20, 2001
Today's Anne Frank Quote: Despite all my theories and efforts, I miss - every day and every hour of the day - having a mother who understands me. That's why with everything I do and write, I imagine the kind of Mom I'd like to be to my children later on. The kind of Mom who doesn't take everything people say too seriously, but who takes me seriously.
Dear Anne:
Well, so much for my earlier resolution. I think I shouldn't reread any of the things I write because they just seem so idiotic I can't believe it.
Are you sure you don't know my mother? You write like you do, like we could be some sort of strange twin sisters separated at birth (and by 60 years!).
We're back from the beach, so we're back again to my life as a misfit.
Today I had my first day of band camp. Some of the kids call it "band concentration camp," but given your situation and the fact that we're such close friends, I try to refrain from that label.
Now, as I have previously said, I was an incredibly gifted eighth chair clarinet in my middle school band. I may slide even further down the band social pecking order (is that possible?) now that I am in high school. Because now I need to combine playing and marching, and coordinated I am not.
So here's what happened today. We were learning some basic steps. The older kids who were teaching us were so mean - they just kept making us do things over and over and over until we got it right. And unfortunately, I was one of the reasons why we had to keep doing things· over and·over again. After doing one move two times, this mealy-mouthed, ferret-faced kid named Jason Clark, who I've known since kindergarten, yells out, ''Why do we have to keep doing this over and over again when Sarah is the only one who keeps screwing up?"
I was so embarrassed; all I could think of to do was cry. And I just left and went home.
Went she got home from work, Mom asked what was wrong. When I told her and said that I couldn't ever go back again, she said, "That reminds me of a time when Katy, blah, blah, blah..." I could tell right away that this was going to be one of those stories that end with some uplifting moral about trying until you succeed. And featuring my perfect sister who never failed at anything to boot.
Before I knew it, I said, "Mom, that's a crock; you aren't even listening to me." To which she said, "Don't you take that tone with me." To which I said, "I hate you and this whole stupid perfect family."
Which led in rather short order to my banishment to my room, where I now sit. And I've been grounded for a week to boot as a result of some choice words I used when I was initially banished. So let me tell you once again when you say you'd like "the kind of Mom who doesn't take everything people say too seriously," I know what you mean.
Mom must realize that I don't hate her. It's just that I get so mad sometimes that things pop out of my mouth before I even have a chance to think. I wish she would just ignore stuff like that - she must know that I don't really mean it. But no, everything I say is cause for a big deal. Big trouble. Big yelling. And now I sit here, grounded for a week.
Maybe when my Dad gets home he can make my Mom understand some of this. I hope. I hope.
Your fellow prisoner, Sarah
August 23, 2001
Today's Anne Frank Quote: What affected me even more was the realization that I was never going to be able to confide in Father.
Dear Anne:
Sometimes I think we must live in some sort of parallel universe. That gets me a little scared because I've read the back part of the book and I know what happens to you. But I can't bear to think of that, or else I wouldn't be able to continue writing these letters. I wish I could bring you into our life here in Herndon, where nothing much bad ever happens and where you would be safe. And where the most awful things that seem to happen are fights with your parents.
I'm still mad at Mom for grounding me. But I think I am even madder at Dad. Because when he came home, I told him everything that happened, and then he said, "What your Mom says goes."
Can you believe this? In this family, Dad has always been the one who really listens to me. And now he has gone over to the "Dark Side."
I've been reading a lot of the diary the past few days. This is because: a) with this grounding thing I have nothing better to do (no offense!); and b) it is now just 12 days before the beginning of school. I have to finish reading the book and writing the journal one week after the first day of school.
I wonder how I'll be able to get though high school if I don't have Dad on my side. It wasn't always so bad with Mom. Up until a couple of years ago, we used to have so much fun. We would go shopping. We would talk. We would do lots of things together.
But something changed in the past few years. It seems like we can't agree on anything! We fight all the time!
I feel like if I do anything, my Mom will always find something wrong with it. All the same questions, over and over and over. Blah. Blah. Blah.
Your friend, Sarah
September 3, 2001
Today's Anne Frank Quote: My life has gotten better, much better. God has not forsaken me, and He never will.
Dear Anne:
I feel like I am constantly on a roller coaster.
As I get near the end of this journal and look back at some of the stuff I have written, I can't remember how sometimes I am way up, and then the very next thing I write sounds so depressing I can hardly stand it.lThat seems to be the same for you. However, I guess I can see why you might have a few more reasons to be a little more moody than me.
Let 's compare...
Living conditions
Anne - Inside for 2 years
Sarah - able to go outside any time I want
Clothes
Anne – handmade
Sarah - Old Navy and Abercrombie
Friends
Anne - haven't seen in 2 years; some have been arrested
Sarah - can be friends with anyone I want
So I find myself wondering, "Why can't things be a little smoother?" Why can't I just not go crazy all the time?"
You are sitting in an attic. There are people all around you who want to kill you. And yet you write that God will never leave you.
How can you be so sure? How can you be so sure that He hasn't already left you? After all, living in an attic hiding from Germans who want to send you to a concentration camp wouldn't automatically lead me to the conclusion that God was there for me. It would more likely lead me to the conclusion that He was out to get me.
We go to church all the time, and I always say that I believe in God, but how do you know? How can you be so positive in spite of everything that has happened - everything that will happen - to you?
Anyone looking at our lives from outside would conclude that my life is unbelievably better than yours. And yet I can't quite always trust God is there. Were there ever times when you weren't so sure? Did you still feel the same when the Germans came pounding at the door?
I better go. After all, high school starts tomorrow.
Your friend,
Sarah
September 5, 2001
Today's Anne Frank Quote: The things a school girl has to do in the course of a single day!
Dear Anne:
I wanted to give you a snapshot of my high school schedule:
Band: The band director is named Mr. Miller. He has a small goatee and likes to yell. He says that, "Concert band is the reward. Marching band is where you pay your dues." We are all quite inspired by this attitude. Hah!
English: My English teacher is Mr. Jenkins. He is kind of big and looks like a bear. He likes to speak using very long words and sentences. Instead of saying, "It's a full moon tonight," he would say something like, ''The lunar landscape has reached a point of full luminance this evening."
Geometry: My geometry teacher is Ms. Weaver. Nobody can quite figure her out. Some days she has short hair, and then the next day she'll show up with what looks like a ponytail attached to her hair to make it look long. I don't know who she is trying to fool with this arrangement. Does she think that we all think she is like one of those dolls they used to have with a knob in her back and she turns it some days to pull her hair in and turns it the other some other days to make it long? I don't get it. She does have one amazing talent though, that I have personally witnessed even though it is only the second day of school. She can stand at the blackboard and draw a perfect circle freehand. Try it sometime. It is not easy. I don't know what the use of this talent is outside of being a geometry teacher, so maybe she is in the perfect job. I wonder if they have special training in college to teach people who want to be geometry teachers to draw perfect circles.
Social Studies: In social studies I have a lady named Mrs. Gemmer. She apparently originated on a different planet than this one. I wonder when the mother ship will return to pick her up. She is very tall - maybe six feet - and has bright red hair and glasses. When she talks, she will get to a certain point, and then I guess her mouth runs out of things to say before her brain realizes it, and then she just ends up by saying... "etcetera, etcetera, etcetera." Except she doesn't just say it quickly. She drags it out so that each one takes about 3 seconds. "Etceteraaaaaaaaaaaa." She yelled at me the very first day at school just because I didn't know what year the Civil War ended. She went around the classroom asking us all sorts of questions that she said were from the standardized tests that we have to take at the end of the year. She was astonished that we didn't know the answers. Helllooooooo. Isn't that why we are in school and taking this class from an alien to begin with? I have to remember to find out when the Civil War ended before school tomorrow.
My Dad is always reading books about the Civil War so I’ll ask him. I seem to recall it ended sometime in the 1800s. Hah! I know it ended in 1865. But I like to torment my Dad by making him think that I have no idea. It gives him the chance to make his speech about how kids today know nothing about history and what are they teaching kids in schools today and things like that. It makes him happy.
Biology: Mr. Schmidling is my biology teacher. My older sisters had him as well. He has been teaching about a hundred years. From what they tell me, he has been telling the same jokes the entire time. He wears a strong tie like people from Texas wear sometimes.
That's all for now. At least I appear to have survived my first two days! Next week we need to finish our journals.
Your friend,
Sarah
September 7, 2001
Today's Anne Frank Quote: I've struggled long and hard to become as independent as I am now. You can laugh and refuse to believe me, but I don't care. I know I'm an independent person, and I don't feel I need to account to you for my actions.
Dear Anne:
Sometimes I think my Dad just wants to protect me from EVERYTHING.
He makes me feel like I'm 7 years old.
You write a lot about how you got to be really close with this guy named Peter in the attic. I guess it is good that things worked out with him, because it isn't like there were a lot of other people up there. It's good for you to have someone to like you and someone to talk to, especially since you are stuck there and can't go out. I wish I had someone like that.
You also write that your father wasn't too wild about all of the time you were spending with Peter. I guess in some ways fathers will always be fathers.
My Dad was so unfair to me tonight. I wanted to go to a football game, except it was at Westfield. Some guys who are juniors in the band invited me and a couple of friends to go. It was all set. They were even going to drive. I don't have that many chances to go to football games as a normal person instead of a band person. Not to mention that as I've previously noted in this journal, my "normal" leaves a little something to be desired, so I don't get a whole lot of invitations - and from juniors! It was going to be a great way to wind up the first official week of school.
When I asked my Dad, he said, "No, I don't think that's a very good idea. Juniors aren't allowed to drive with a bunch of kids in the car." I said, "But if it's OK with his parents, I don't see why it wouldn't be OK with you." He said he still didn't think it was a good idea. Before I knew it, I blurted out, "That sucks!" Wrong call.
Which is how I wound up doing this journal on a Friday night instead of going out with my friends.
Why does he have to be so suspicious about everything? If he only knew what some of the other kids do! Well, maybe it's better he doesn't know what the others kids do or I might never be allowed even out of the house.
Living a life of isolation in my room, I remain your friend, Sarah
September 10, 2001
Dear Anne:
You'll notice I don't have a quote at the beginning of this entry. That's because I am going to do something a little different today since it is the last entry in this journal. I need to hand this thing in on Wednesday. Tomorrow I have band practice all afternoon and a big report to work on in history, so I don't know if I'm going to have much of a chance to work on the journal.
I'm going to take the same approach with my Dad that you did with yours. That seems like a good way to wrap up this journal.
After he kept criticizing you for going off with Peter all the time, you decided to write him a letter and tell him exactly how you felt. It wasn't the nicest of letters, but you said that once he got the letter, it kind of cleared the air between you and you were able to talk like you used to.
Given the experience of this weekend - I am still so mad about missing the Westfield game I can hardly stand it - I think it is time to set the record straight. I am going to write him a letter, and then go downstairs and leave it on the kitchen table after everyone goes to bed. He is getting up early to catch a flight to Los Angeles. It will do him good to maybe think about things from my perspective. Maybe letter will work like yours did on your father and when my Dad gets back we can have a real talk like we used to.
Here's what I am going to say in my letter:
Dear Dad:
I think it is time that you realized that things are not the same between us as they once were.
You need to stop trying to control everything that I do. You may not believe it or like it, but I am grown up. I am an independent person and I don't need you or Mom like I once did.
All I ever get from you now is, "Don't do this. Don't do that. Be home early. " Well, that is fine to say, but you need to understand that I will do the things I need to do.
I have struggled hard despite being weird to be independent. I know that I will never be successful in the ways that Katy and Chrissy are successful. But I will do my best with what I have.
So from now on, you need to look at me differently. I am no longer the little girl who needs you to do everything for me. When I was little you used to tuck me in every night and say prayers. We haven't done that for years because I outgrew it. I don't need you like I once did.
There are a lot of other things that I have outgrown in the past couple of years, and now that I am in high school, you can't control every single thing I do anymore.
Your daughter, Sarah
So you see, my friend, that I have learned something from our pen pal relationship. I know my letter sounds a little tough, but I tried to follow your example. You said everyone was upset after you gave your letter, but eventually it helped.
Once I show this journal to Mr. Jenkins on Wednesday - he better not read this, he promised he wouldn't - I don't know what I'll do with it. Maybe bum it like I planned. But maybe I'll keep it and write some things in it from time to time. I would wish you good luck, but I know it wouldn't make any difference. I wish that you had been born 60 years later in Herndon, Virginia the most boring and safe place in the world instead of living in Europe during World War II. Maybe we could have been real friends instead of just pen pals.
Wish me luck in getting a good reaction from my Dad to the letter.
Your friend,
Sarah
The Journal
Part Two
Coffee cups on the counter, jackets on the chair
Papers on the doorstep, but you're not there
Everything is everything
Everything is everything
But you're missing
-Bruce Springsteen
Christmas Eve, 2002
Sarah and her family settled into the sixth pew from the front, on the right side of the church (their traditional spot) for the Christmas Eve 11:00 p.m. service.
Sarah did what she always did - she played her part, and if she said so herself, so did it pretty flawlessly. She had come to think of this as her "World's Greatest Actress" mode. She had gotten pretty good at this over the past year and a half.
She could continue to function, but no one really knew how disconnected she was. She could even carry on a conversation. But for her, the conversations were like lines in a script that she did not understand - something to get through. She tried hard not to make it too obvious when she stumbled on her lines.
Sarah wondered how she had ever gotten though freshman year, and now here she was halfway through sophomore year. Strangely, she had gotten better at school. She wondered whether her newfound ability to shut the world out had somehow helped her in her schoolwork. She seemed better able to focus and concentrate. When everyone else was distracted by everything going on around them, Sarah found that she had an advantage. For the first time in her life, she was getting mostly As and Bs – and without all that much effort. She simply knew that she had to - after all, it was part of the script.
When she thought about it, she understood that her recent school accomplishments were really an inextricable part of the "Actress Sarah" mode. If she could only act out her part in every way, and do everything in the script, and do exactly everything that was expected of her, then maybe things would be OK.
Church was a part of the script as well. Her mother seemed to get a lot of reassurance from the fact that Sarah continued to go to church, so Sarah figured that she might as well continue to go. As a matter of fact, Sarah now enjoyed church quite a bit, because the scripting for the most part was quite exact. She liked having her part actually written down; it even further reduced the necessity of any thinking or spontaneity.
Sitting in the church on Christmas Eve, Sarah surveyed the bulletin, and looked ahead to identify the songs she would need to sing and the responses she would need to make. She carefully noted the numbers of the songs and used some of the other pieces of the bulletin - each year it seemed like more and more miscellaneous pieces of paper were being added - to mark the place for the songs so she would be prepared.
Having completely her preparation, she sat back to let the script unfold.
There were two parts of church that Sarah wished they would change. First, right after the Prayer of Confession, there was a part for "silent confession." Sarah knew from when her father used to be liturgist that in the liturgist instructions, it said to pause for up to 30 seconds for this silent confession. Sarah thought that 30 seconds of silent confession was pretty near an eternity. She was very thankful that most of the liturgists didn't go anywhere near that long. This was simply too much time to go without a script.
" ...and now let us join in silent confession and acknowledge our failures to be faithful to God's plan for our lives."
Sarah silently began counting the seconds off. By the time she got to 10, it had already seemed like an eternity had passed. Despite all of her efforts to keep focused on the counting, she found herself drifting off.
Images of the past year came flashed through her mind. She thought back to their last conversation - if you could call it that. She thought a bout the packed church during the funeral and all the weeks of insanity that followed. She drifted back to last Christmas - the first since the crash. She could feel the emptiness in the pit of her stomach, an emptiness that just would not go away. An emptiness that could only be put on hold by sticking to the script.
She came back from her thoughts with a start as the liturgist ended the silent confession with, "Amen." She silently cursed the extra long period of silence; this was not what she needed, especially on Christmas Eve.
Almost right on the heels of the silent confession came her second worst part of the service, the passing of the peace. You were supposed to just say, "Peace be with you," and then the other person says "And also with you:" But you could never quite tell who was supposed to go first, and who was supposed to reply. In addition, Sarah could feel the unspoken pity each time she shook a hand. Sarah was sure that no one really knew how she felt. She tried throughout the whole exercise to maintain her actress front. '
As the choir followed the "Peace" with some Christmas carols, despite her best efforts at maintaining her usual control, the carols triggered memories in Sarah.
She thought back to some of the movies she and her family had always liked to watch. For years - until this Christmas and last year—they had watched "It's a Wonderful Life" on Christmas Eve. She had always liked the idea of Clarence, the guardian angel who protects the main character, George Bailey, and eventually helps him understand that his life really was good.
There was a lime when Sarah liked to imagine that t here was some sort of guardian angel looking after her. Someone who would mostly leave her alone, but would pop in if she was about to do something really stupid or if she was really upset.
There were a lot of things that got very unclear after the airplane that her Dad was on crashed into the Pentagon. But for all the things that got hazy, one thing quickly got very clear for Sarah. If she ever had a guardian angel, he or she had checked out when she really needed one.
Sarah thought back to everything that happened after the crash. On September 11, Sarah had been watching everything on television that was going on at the World Trade Center along with the rest of her classmates. When the report first came on about the crash at the Pentagon, Sarah had at first even forgotten that her Dad was flying that day. As soon as she heard that the plane had taken off from Dulles, and had been headed to Los Angeles, she knew immediately that something was terribly wrong. When the principal showed up at the door of her classroom and asked her to come with him, that's when it hit home.
It had seemed like the merry go round that followed would never end. It was during the endless phone calls and visits and the press coverage that Sarah first realized that she was not really present at any of these activities. It was like she was an actress, acting out the part of the grieving daughter. She stood with her mother and her sisters and tried to be brave and thank the endless parade of people who cared about what she and her family were going through. They really did care, but it was all too much for Sarah. In order to get from one day to the next, she needed to be "there" for her mother and her family. But in order to preserve her sanity, she also needed to be "not there."
Oddly enough, it wasn't until after the anniversary commemoration that her Dad's death really hit home. There were many images that flashed through Sarah's mind as she thought back to that day. But one stuck with her. The Washington Post had done a special article one year after the crash in which they listed all of the victims. Each short article featured a picture of something that was important to the person. Sarah's mother had put in the paper a picture of a small piece of shell, with bits of purple at the edges. When she allowed her mind to wander, Sarah often thought about that article.
As the minister began the sermon, Sarah almost visibly jolted as she came back from wherever she had gone. After reading the traditional Christmas story from Luke, the minister began his sermon.
God doesn't often use the people we think God should use. God doesn't often act in the ways we think are most sensible. The Scripture is full of testimonies of people who were completely taken aback when God revealed to them what the plan was for their lives.
Abraham's wife Sarah was ready to enter her nursing home, when God announced that the plan for her was to have a baby. All she could do was laugh.
God encounters Moses through a burning bush and reveals that the plan is for him to lead the Hebrew slaves from the powerful Egyptians. Moses probably wanted to laugh at this idea too because to him it seemed like a plan that would surely fail. Moses replies with excuses as to why this is not a good idea.
In the New Testament, God encounters Saul who is the lead persecutor of the Christians and turns him into the Paul, the lead apostle and evangelist to the Gentiles.
And of course the entire New Testament tells of the most surprising and seemingly crazy plan of all. That the Creator of the universe would be born to a poor, Jewish teenage girl, and would come to dwell among the creation so as not to destroy it, but to love and to redeem it.
At the mention of the Mary, Sarah suddenly thought back to Anne and the journal. She hadn't even thought about Anne or the journal since the accident. It was almost like she had blacked out the whole experience. It had taken weeks before everything got back to normal at school after the funeral, and by that time, no one really even cared that Sarah had never turned in the journal. They were all so conscious of not doing anything to upset her that they never even asked her about it.
She wasn't even sure she knew where it was, and for that memory gap, she was thankful. She had to laugh at herself for having been such an idiot with that journal. It embarrassed her now to think that she actually had imagined herself writing back and forth to Anne. What on earth had she been thinking?
Thinking about the journal again led her close to the place that she had avoided for the past year and half. She thought fleetingly about the letter she had left for her father, but then quickly refocused on whatever was going on in the sermon in the hope of diverting her mind to something - anything - else.
In the stories of Scripture we are reminded that this is the way God works - it's almost always a surprise. It almost always comes in a way that we cannot predict.
And not just on the large scale, but even in our own lives. Sometimes I wonder how Mary actually heard the call of God.
Did she tell anyone about it? Did she tell Joseph?
Did it come as a surprise to her?
Did she ever think, "No way. Not me. "
I know this has been true in my own life. Like all children, I remember having many dreams of the future and what I wanted to be when I grew up. And I've got to tell you, being a Presbyterian minister was about the last thing I saw in my crystal ball. And not just when I was a child, but also when I was in high school and college. It wasn't until my second year in seminary that I got a glimpse of the vision that this might be where God was leading me.
And what I've learned from this experience is that you never really know where God is going to lead you. And often when you think God 's leading you somewhere, there is usually some kind of a turn along the way. The journey is always somewhat of a surprise. And I've learned that if there is anything we should expect, it's that God will work in unexpected ways.
Sarah reflected that that certainly was true - you never know where God was going to lead you. She also reflected that if the past year and a half was part of some magnificent plan, it sure was a pretty crappy plan. How about pick someone else to be the recipient of all of this "planning?" God had certainly worked for her in "unexpected ways." Unexpected was an understatement.
A couple of weeks ago I found myself struck down by some virus going around. And while I was lying around the house one day, I came upon an interesting episode of Oprah.
It began with Oprah talking to the audience one day after the show. And a woman stood up, her name was Peggy Plunket, and she said in her sweet, southern accent that I won't try to imitate, "Oprah, everyone from my town just loves you. And you've just got to come visit us sometime in Nakatash, Lousianna.
It was the nice, expected thing anyone might say to a celebrity. What Peggy Plunket didn't know was that Oprah thought it'd be fun to surprise her and take her up on her offer to visit. So the episode showed Oprah traveling down to the small town of Nakatash, Louisiana and knocking on Peggy's door with no warning. And Peggy opened the door, and after she got over her initial shock, she invited Oprah in and they spent the day together.
Oprah played with Peggy’s two little black dogs. Oprah answered Peggy’s phone calls. She dined with Peggy at her favorite restaurant where she drank four glasses of the traditional southern almond tea. And for that one day, as Peggy and Oprah walked around town together and as everyone slowly found out just who had come to their small town, Peggy felt like she was a celebrity.
And as I watched this show, I thought that's kind of like the way it is with God. God sometimes shows up in our lives in totally unexpected ways. Just as Peggy asked for something she thought would probably never come true, sometimes we find that the prayers we pray asking for God to show up in our lives, really do come true. And I think that God, like Oprah, loves to surprise us. God loves to surprise us with coming in unexpected ways that knock us off our feet.
Download this book for your ebook reader.
(Pages 1-24 show above.)