Dear Ri

6 March 1984 I wrote my first entry in my first ever diary. Gillian Anderson (not the X-Files lady) gave it to me for my birthday @ my Mike's Kitchen birthday party. And so the next 27 years were borne. lol
I gave my diary a name. It seemed like the right thing to do. And I still start my entries as I did that first one. Like I'm writing to someone. What do I call my diary. Well, even at age 10, I didn't want to be like everyone else and write (ho hum yawn) "Dear Diary". So I called her Ri. Say it aloud. See what I did? Looking back, I do think it's rather clever of my 10 year old self to do.
I wrote gibberish that first year, full of mooning over Magnum and George Michael and my friend T and I running all over the neighbourhood. The next two years are spent wondering why all the boys on their BMX's loved T and not me. Truth is, at age 11 and now, she is stunning and I was/am the shorter than average, freckled chubby cheeked brat!
I look back at those entries and cry with laughter. In 1986, I got my first kiss - this entry has been read out on GMTV by Richard and Judy (oh the heights of fame!) and it makes me giggle "Today M kissed me, on the mouth, with his lips, open - wow!"
1987 we hit high school - entry of the naive 13 year old has to be "H asked me if I'd ever given anyone a BJ. I dunno, have I? I'm not sure.Will have to ask Catty on the weekend". H being a girl in boarding school who probably gave them for breakfast, and Catty being my long-suffering aunt.  1987 is the start of much peer pressure on both sides of a coin, bitchiness and angst. And wanting boys who didn't notice me. But best of all, making friends who have lasted the distance and years.
1988 - I do dislike reading this year. It's the year I tried so very hard to fit in and be cool and failed oh so miserably. It's a year when I pissed off my mother, my family and burnt friendships at a glance. But also parts are so much fun like when TSG and I got grounded for two weeks at a time regulary. Fab groundings when everyone came to visit us!

I'm so glad I keep a diary. It's not the same as it was back then, I write now more about how I feel, when I feel like it, not so much an everyday affair. But the diaries back then are more like scrapbooks before they became the 'thing to do' that they are now. They are filled with momento's and dates and all the important stuff a teenager wants to remember.  I have a menthol cigarette stuck in my diary in 1990 from a friend, 50c that we picked up. Condom wrappers from a 'jiffy' that L put inbetween the train doors. Bet she doesn't remember that. lol
And if you had me as a friend back then, then you could ask me what you did on a certain day and I'd probably be able to tell you.

I guess I'm the historian of my friends. Shall we get remembering?