my earliest journal entries are painful to read. yet i re-read them again and again. not daily or weekly or even monthly, but every couple of years or so, when i find the need to remind myself that i do in fact survive.
the entries are soulful and angry. my pen slashing the pages with self-criticism and hopelessness. i was an adolescent in the 70s. raised in more of an upper middle than lower upper class environment, my parents fringed the latter, and their business, social and recreational activities left me largely unsupervised at a time when some clearer boundaries would have been helpful.
by high school in the 70’s we were not virgins. we smoked cigarettes and pot; drank beer, wine and liquor – in bars; dabbled in mescaline; inhaled whippets and miscellaneous other items; hitchhiked; shoplifted, stole from our parents; snuck out in the night; and, of course, had sex.
My journal entries, far from celebrating these good times, expressed shame. I was not the girl I wanted to be. i was something — someone — lesser.
do i still know shame? “the painful feeling arising from the consciousness of something dishonorable, improper, ridiculous, etc., done by oneself or another.” i want to say no. to say that i have come so far that i have left that pain behind, but truth will not be ignored in this forum.
i feel shame when i sink to parry behaviors i deem dishonorable with the very same or similar behaviors. i also feel shame when i deserve loaves and accept crumbs. but this shame is different from my 70s shame. my shame now comes primarily when i disappoint myself. my shame then came from more often my failure to meet the expectations of others.
i’ll have to consider the significance of this at another time — my eyelids are drooping.