{Also embarrassingly features on The M Word}
Picture the scene. It’s 1995 and a 14-year-old me sits in her room, listening to Oasis and Blur battle it out in the charts. I’m trying to tame my fuzz of red hair into something somewhat presentable because GHD’s hadn’t been invented yet.
I’d probably just finished watching the new episode of Friends, after arguing with my parents about why I wasn’t allowed go to a disco, while screaming at my sisters yet again to stay out of my room and stop robbing my stuff.
I would have phoned my friends Margaret and Lisa (after waiting for years for everyone else to get the hell off the landline) to catch up on all the latest gossip after seeing them two hours previously at school. My bedroom walls are plastered with images of my hero Andre Agassi (shut up, ok?! He was gorgeous!) and instead of doing my Irish homework I was pouring my heart out into my diary as any dramatic teenage girl should do!
It was all very important and very real at the time of course – but when I found my trusty beloved diary again recently, well, let’s just say I’d had a healthy dose of cringey mortification served cold!
Does anyone else use that app Timehop and look back on Facebook status updates circa 2008 when it prompted you to speak about yourself in the third person? And you think to yourself, why on earth was I such an absolute plank?! Reading over this diary is like that except about a million times worse, but also, to me at least, absolutely hilarious. I was beyond a plank. I can only hope I am getting less plank-y as the years go on. Will this very blog post mortify the life out of me someday?
Well I won’t have to wait until someday, this post is mortifying me as I type. So without further ado, let us take a look back at 1995 and the things I deemed important enough to write into….
My Diary –
2nd Sept. 95. Sat.
Well, a lot has happened over the past few days.
Except it seems I didn’t deem any of it important enough to actually write about!
Yesterday we had to go back to school. I sit beside Lisa. On the 31st August (Thur) Lisa’s parents took me, Lisa + Margaret to Tramore. It was brilliant! Mam and Dad said they have to have a ‘discussion’ about me. If they think it’s going to change me, they’ve got another thing coming. Lisa’s staying over tonight.
LOLLING so hard at the thought of what the ‘discussion’ entailed. At least I was sticking to my guns anyway and wasn’t about to change myself for anyone! Go girl.
I also quite like my reference to the particular day of the week, it would have killed me to wonder what day of the week it was when we went to Tramore.
Sun 10 September 1995
I’m totally in love with Andre Agassi. I swear, he is so gorgeous. I just can’t get him out of my head.
Ahead of my time here with that line – I wonder if Kylie was thinking of Andre too?
He won the US Open Semi Finals against Boris Becker yesterday. Right at this very moment he is playing tennis (finals) against Pete Sampras. It is 10.35 here, so in New York it is 25 to 6.
It is important to know at all times, which time zone your one true love is working in.
Sigh.
Cringe-induced Facepalm.
Me and Lisa had a fight. I found out from Margaret that Lisa has been keeping all sorts of
Frustratingly, right at the juicy moment – something must have happened and I never finished that sentence. No doubt it was highly incriminating teenage angst-y stuff anyway, whatever it was she was hiding. BUT – not to worry –
Mon 11 September 1995
Well, me + Lisa made up, but things are still a bit weird.
Awkward! Just what was it Lisa was keeping loads of?! Never mind, on to more important matters –
Margaret gave me a sticker of Andre Agassi today. Oh my God. I love him.
I did love him. Stupid Brooke Shields keeping him from me!
I’ve a load of Irish to learn – I’m dead. Till tomorrow.
Sometimes it’s best to just bullet point your worries and not go into them too much.
18 September 1995. Mon
Sorry for not writing!
Sorry to who?! An inanimate piece of paper? I don’t think it minds!
Last weekend I stayed the
nightweekend in Lisa’s house. It was a laugh. Lisa’s brother Gusie took us out on the tractor. It was so funny.
!! How wild were Lisa and I?!
On Friday when we were walking home from
Science class.. went out to the bog. Oisin gave me a HUGE pair of wellies. We looked hilarious. Margaret had her camera. I fell into a hole.
I FELL INTO A HOLE.
Then me + Lisa had to walk around town in our wellies! It was so funny + embarrassing. Finally, we went back to the school and got changed. Lisa Gordon gave me more pictures of Andre Agassi! Lisa says he’s folicaly challenged (bald), but he’s not!
HOW DARE SHE!
He broke up with Brooke Shiels. (YESSSSSSS!)
Yes Jen. Because now at last he can be yours! There is absolutely nothing stopping you now!
In Pennys I got a purple-woolly top, a white thing for underneath, and platso’s (black)
I think I mean ‘Palazzo’ trousers? Anyone?? Wide legged things? Clearly fashion is NOT my thing.
for xmas. When I got home me + Mam watched “Muriels Wedding”. It was good.
In fairness that is a CLASSIC!
Today me + Margaret went to a kids xmas play
But why?? Whose kids were in it? No idea.
It was funny. In school we’re in the choir – we missed History today! X-Cell-ent!
Suddenly clear why I failed junior cert History. Also – CRINGE at my teenage-mutant -ninja-turtle influenced use of English there.
But behold my favourite line so far:
Yesterday I got a chain letter in the post – from Fiona Richardson from Dundalk – I’ll kill her. C ya.
Shout out to Fiona, a lifelong friend since childhood. Thankfully I didn’t actually kill her. But why would she do such a thing? A chain letter!!!! Maybe it’s her fault what happened to me next for breaking that chain and millennia worth of bad luck fell on me..?!
27 September 95. Wednesday
Yesterday (Tue 26th)
Thank God again for my reference to the weekday cos otherwise we’d never have known that the day before Wednesday is Tuesday.
Anyway, hold on tight because things are about to get emotional:
I went to the dentist. I HAVE BRACES. My life is over. I can’t even talk, or eat. Tomorrow I have to go and get TRAIN TRACKS. Goodbye, life, it was nice knowing you.
And in a break from the life ending disaster:
It was Nana’s birthday on Friday. I think she was 78/79. I love her. Even though she’s fussy! I have thurs + friday off.
But back to the doom:
I’M DEAD IN IRISH! I HATE MS NOLAN!!
THANKS A LOT FIONA, DAMN YOU AND YOUR CHAIN LETTER!!
Til tomorrow.
So as we can see, my 14 year old life was full of ups and downs, friends keeping mysterious things from me, falling out, making up, falling into bog holes, life-threatening chain letters, and above all else, Andre Agassi.
So let’s end on a nice entry about a puppy almost called Artho, and the unfairness of life in being the eldest.
A couple of weeks ago we got a little puppy. She’s a collie and we called
himher Kim. First, dad said she looked like a pint of Guinness so we should call her ‘Artho’. Then he decided ‘Stout’!! We talked him out of it, though!Mam and Dad want me to move in to their room so they can have my room for their built-in wardrobes. Why can’t they move Sandra?
WHY indeed, Diary, why indeed.
/END_MORTIFICATION
The Scenic Route 