Another Me

I'm in the midst of Friend-only-ifying my old Livejournal. It's a rather painful experience. I can't stop cringing. I'm starting at the beginning to hide the memories in an order that mostly goes from worst to best. The painful thing isn't only that I couldn't write very well; I still have problems with style, in my opinion. It's not that my tone is often that of a 14-year-old girl, though there's that. No, the agonizing thing is how vulnerable I was, how cool I wanted to be, and how open I was trying to be with the world. I really lay my feelings bare a lot in those early entries. My thinly-veiled crushes, my desire to be loved and included by friends, my futile attempts to be hip. It makes me want to protect 18-year-old me and tell him it'll be all right. That college will get better in some ways and worse in others. That nearly none of those girls he's pining for will date him, but others will. It also makes me want to beat 18-year-old me up for being a big whiner.

But maybe the worst thing is that I don't think I'm all that different today. A little older, and more educated, and more mature, but essentially the same.

I have to admit though, some of the entries are pretty hilarious, whether intentional or (more often) not. I'd provide a link for you to see, but unless you're my LJ friend, there's not going to be much to see there in a day or two anyway.