14 April, Tuesday - 2002

It is a very common phenomenon that occurs within human beings - no matter what kind - to cram their writing when they approach the end of the page.

I’ve seen my teachers do it at school, my parents do it at home, they cram it all in the little space they have left, and so do I, nowadays. I actually never realised it, but it’s just a thing we do.

Anyways, I was saying: Like once, for instance, my cousin - whom I don’t know quite well - was showing me how to write sentences and he - rather foolishly - began a sentence at 3/4ths the ruled-line which the notebook provides, because the previous sentence was barging in at the beginning of the line. You won’t believe his determination to fit the WHOLE sentence in the remaining space!

He crammed, he added those little arrows between words and crammed wonkily on top. The result? Well, it was badly handwritten! I’m currently exhibiting this curious phenomenon in my diary as seen right now - I’m prey, too, to this habit, I’m realising...

I do hate those ruled-line notebooks if I do say so myself, but it feels rather undignified to have bowed down to the humanness of this act. Having performed it myself, I feel a bit ashamed. Maybe it’s because I was just mentioning my dumb cousin do that, but I doubt that’s the case. Despite planning which words to write for the whole line, I still find it enraging when I feel like I should have been able to fit just a bit more into that wretched line.

Is it just a THING to forget what we have when we have it? Like I didn’t think much when I had a whole line’s space, I’m only considering space when I don’t have it.

Another thing, for you reader, and for which I apologise: I don’t know why I’m writing about this, actually. I just feel like I must write these silly parts of my unpolluted thoughts into these diaries - who barely age - so bear with my beautiful nonsense. Soon you will see another writer who has corrupted opinions and a lost innocence. An unpleasant, unchildlike, person.

A person who has eventually bent to the mere whims of fate, stained by the soot they picked-up, rolling on the way. Looking back at the dust they stirred, trodding the trodden path, making it a bit more downtrodden. I will become that person, reader, like how everyone has become that person. I won’t write about these stupid things, for they will be too uptight for me then. Rusted is what I will soon become, for I age faster than these pages and these words.

A few last days of innocence and childhood is what I’m trying to capture. However will I capture innocence, though? These thoughts, this carefree life. I want to be able to remember them when I don’t have them, which will be soon!

I want to enjoy this present, so I can relive this past in my future. How can I enjoy when I know it’s all going to get lost? How then, will I come back here to enjoy? Dear me, what a little dilemma this will be compared to it all? Still so big, still so small?

21st April Tuesday - 2002

I was walking today, back home from school, and by habit, I stepped on a discarded coffee-toffee wrapper. Obviously, because there is the slimmest chance that there IS a coffee-toffee in it. AND YOU WON’T BELIEVE ME THERE WAS A TOFFEE! Of course I ate it. The best toffee ever. I mean, in all the time we spend

grumbling about our bad luck, we do get lucky sometimes! Coffee-toffees are my FAVOURITE! How mere it was to find a discarded toffee, still it changed my gloomy I’m-losing-my-childhood mood. Almost as if I’m longing for something that I have but will be gone. The rough onset of now, in anticipation of the rough onset of tomorrow.

Rough onset on top of rough onset for me! here we go, my gloomy I’m- losing-my-childhood mood is back and dashing!

I’m still documenting this, in fear that these days will be lost. It strikes me that if I were immortal, I wouldn’t write this diary. There is a tinge of urgency in whatever we do. Documenting days, feelings, holding them like they’re going to go away.

It still eggs me, I swear, even with its lack of significance it is supposed to have. This insignificant dilemma bothers me more than I’d like to admit. Everything I ‘should’ be doing, is to secure my future, the one I don’t want to have. How ironic.

April 23, Thursday - 2002

I must get back to my mission. I must go back to doing silly things, I must document these mundane things. These words will stay here for centuries ahead of me, these pages won’t die when I do, becoming my remain... I went to the local grocery store today. The usual cashier had a pile of wilted roses on the side, she caught me looking in their direction and frowning at its smell. She offered justification by telling me that those were given to her by her boyfriend. Who had gone out of town for a long time. She also told me she’d preserve those petals till he came back. I did tell her he probably would be okay if she disposed them, but she remained insistent.

I want to know her. I want to actually know her, for some reason I cannot quite explain. It feels like I want to acknowledge her significance in this place, I actually want to acknowledge everybody’s significance in this place. We mean so much in our lives and nothing to somebody else. Still so big, still so small.

How she wanted to hold on to something, no matter what, because that could even be the last thing he ever gave her...

Regardless.

I brush my teeth every morning. I’m sure it doesn’t hurt to not brush every other day, but I do it anyway. My toothbrush is blue with a suction thingy at the bottom. I still use a children’s toothbrush, like my habits have forgotten they’ve grown up. Maybe they have forgotten, because habits are habits and they forget things.

I got these toothbrushes from a dental camp I had visited long ago. I still brush my teeth round and round because I took that dentist very seriously then. I know brushing techniques don’t make a damn difference in anybody’s life...still that habit just stuck. Like all habits. I remember thinking that these toothbrushes will go on for a lifetime. They are.

Is thinking this supposed to hurt? Because it vaguely does.

I’m sorry, reader, I cannot seem to shake off the grief of leaving the past in my writing. Despite talking about mundane tasks like brushing my teeth. You can see like I tried today, to at least avoid that longing, I cannot. My need for writing in this diary is over, now all I can write about is this longing. I am stuck, therefore goodbye. Maybe those days ended just now.

7 March - 2023

Time is up for all the documenting I could do,
longing for the past do these current moments brew,
The urgency for documenting, suddenly lost,
Replaced with time, the void of the missing days I crossed.

Time is ripe to put to use, the mundaneness of my daily notes, reminding
us of the days we lived, the thirst seizing us by our throats. What to cram
When there is so much space?
What to write of those lost days?

Keeping those wilted roses in the pages of my diary,
Reminding me of my youth, bright and fiery,
Doused by cold time, its water so blue,
The colour of cleaning teeth with the brush I used to.

A toffee on the road, a joy from yesterday
A taste of its coffee, bringing the longing of that joy at bay
There’s nothing left to say, so I say at last
The only thing I'm looking forward to is my past.

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