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Sweet memory

I have been quiet about doing this scrapbook as I examined my feelings and thought many times about coming to write about them but I never knew what I would say.

Now it is that end/beginning time of the week that I always half-look forward to, half-dread, Sunday night, when Nathan has gone to bed and I stay up a few hours later to get back on track for my night schedule. I thought that I would write of my feelings tonight but even now words fail me.

I don't know why my Beta photos affected me as they did. All the others I looked on with a sense of nostalgia or humor, even the very worst. I guess I'm not as good as I thought. When I see those pictures when I am with all the other girls my age, my heart breaks. They were all so pretty, just as every sixteen-year-old should be, and I looked awful. I wore my long, long hair straight back from my forehead, and my glasses were so large they scarcely stayed on my face. I had this baggy shirt and teal cardigan sweater vest over the shirt, and a long tartan wrap skirt all the way to my loafers. In a way I scarcely recognize myself, I guess because I never looked in a mirror then.

It made me feel so insecure! I don't know why. I can't be that different now. All night I've been going over all aspects of my appearance and lamenting how uncool I still am, how even now if I were around a lot of other girls my age, I would probably be so out of style, and moreover since I have no basis for comparison I must be profoundly hopeless of improving myself. I still have no idea how to act or dress, and I'm still not sure if I should.

For the first time today my photos hurt me to look at. There's no getting around my awkwardness. Away and starting over in Arlington I had forgotten, but these pictures bring everything back to me, taunting me, reminding me that if only I were home once more, if only...

I argue round and round with myself. After all, I spend half my life wishing I was there again, shy and ignorant and in control of my life, never having known that loss, too insecure to smile properly at the camera and yet so secure I never looked into a mirror or spent more than a few minutes dressing myself every day. Wasn't it better then? Does my appearance really matter so much?

It gnaws at me, and I think again that I shouldn't even be writing this, or thinking of it, this puritanical nature that tells me these thoughts will never bring me happiness, that true happiness can come only from my meditations and peace, and yet this desire flames ever hotter inside me to be beautiful. Who doesn't want to be?

I am almost done with the scrapbooks. I only bought one but I have pages to fill three, so tomorrow I will buy a red and a white one to complement my black one. Then when I am done with my scrapbooks, I will start on my stories. I will make a different kind of book, sort of a scrapbook/journal of all my stories since I was six years old. I thought since the beginning of this project that by the end of it I would know what I needed to do next and so I do. And when I am doing with my story journal, perhaps I will know what to do after that.

In November I will attempt another novel for NaNoWriMo and this time I will succeed. I am determined to write only and exactly what I wish. My stubborn desire to write "Cambriel" as I did only led to frustration. And I'm convinced when I am done with my story journal, I will be more comfortable with my writing voice again.

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