“What’s Up!” — My Teenage Journal, Part 1
The journal.
Something I’ve been wanting to do for about six or seven years is revisit my teenage journal by sharing old entires on the web. I floated this idea to Google+ users back then, and I had one really good suggestion which was to take excerpts and include insights and backstory from me now. I liked that, but wasn’t sure where my journal was for a long time. Well… I have a portion of it in my possession as I write this.
About the journal.
I wrote the journal across multiple notebooks and I have the first notebook right now, which I titled “What’s Up!” (I wrote this at the top of every page), and I started writing the journal on October 11, 1997, one day before my 14th birthday. Hopefully, I’ll find more of my notebooks later. This first notebook was a single subject notebook with a blue cover. The cover is gone now and the pages are barely holding onto each other with the binding. In the beginning of the journal, it was not that deep. Typically entires consisted of a sentence or two, often quotes from me or my friends from that day. Sort of like documenting teenage shenanigans and silly things we said. Eventually, I branched out to discussing the events of the day in a single paragraph, but it was still just documenting things. After a few years, I finally started writing down my feelings as well.
But enough blabber, let’s get to a few entires.
Journal Entries.
Tuesday, November 16, 1999
“I don’t know, let’s flip a coin.” — Becky.
Saturday, March 11, 2000
Sorry. I will try to write in here more often. Good news and bad news: good news! I’m in the play! Bad news, Becky is moving to Utah after this school year. Oh, man! It stinks! I was planning on giving her a hug when she graduated, too. It isn’t fair! … Becky’s sweet. Maybe I’ll tell her some time. Hopefully so.
Notes — Obviously, Becky and I were good friends, and it royally sucked when her family moved away. What some might find interesting about this is my comment about hugging her when she graduated. I grew up in a family that didn’t hug a lot. My dad would hug us sometimes, but our mom would not. I literally have zero memories of my mom hugging me as a kid. At some point, I remember getting hugs from friends in high school and it being wild. I remember loving it and having this wild realization that hugs were normal and good. That one could go through their who life hugging their friends and loved ones. My aunt later said to me that she had this realization as well when she was a young adult. My grandma was not a hugging person either and when she realized that you could just go around hugging your friends and loved ones, it blew her mind, and she knew she wanted to be that person. She wanted to be a hugger. Overall, I thought this was a sweet entry, and I hope I told her she was sweet. Becky and I exchanged email addresses before she left and we became pen pals after that. It was amazing. A good portion of who I am is due to those long emails we shared.
Thursday, March 23, 2000
I would like to thank Angel, again, for being a true friend. THANK YOU! I think I’m going to make a card for Angel + Tracey, because they truly made me feel loved. Even though I know it is not near what they did for me.
Notes — I wish I could remember what Angel and Tracey did for me that was so amazing. In that moment, it was the world. So, I’ll take a moment to say thanks again. Being made to feel loved at that time in my life was so important. I was coming out of a very rough childhood and wasn’t out the door yet. I needed to learn new ways to love and be loved, like the hugging mentioned earlier..
Friday, March 24, 2000
I’m the Prince in the Cinderella play we’re doing. Sweet!
…
From now on I, Nathan Weaver, will dish out the hugs. Sweet!
Notes — That princely role was the beginning of a new direction in my life. It was only the second play I’d ever done, and the first lead I’d ever been cast in. It was a college production and I was the only non-college student in it. The director of that play, Deborah DeWitt, would later that summer become my acting mentor. The name of the show was A Toby Show and it was written by Aurand Harris, it was a retelling of Cinderella that took place in the early 1900s. The second quote is me still trying to cope with the knowledge that hugs exist and are normal. 🫂
Saturday, March 25, 2000
Why are there nicer non-Christian women than Christian women? Or at least it seems that way to me. If you ask me, something ain’t right.
Notes — There are no notes. 🤷♀️
Saturday, August 19, 2000
Laugh if delighted.
…
If you build it, they’ll tear it down.
Notes — I like the sentiment of that first one and that last one felt relevant in today’s political climate.
Conclusion
Parents, hug your kids. Show love to your friends (no matter how big or small the gesture is), because you never know just how much your friend may need that in the moment. It may just be the thing that brings them warmth and joy, and gives them hope. Laugh if delighted.
Please let me know what you think in the comments and if you want more. It’ll kind of depend on my entries and how many I can find. This notebook is kinda short, so I may run out soon. But maybe I can find the other notebooks too. I think they’re just in a box somewhere.
The song “Never Let You Go” by Third Eye Blind came up several times during the entires I was going through. It was a hit at the time I was writing some of these entires and I loved it. Still do. Enjoy!
