Visits and Visions

Maudin whining brought to you by the morning after a long afternoon and evening that involved a stupidly adventurous mix of absinthe, vodka and tequila.

"Come with me while I visit my parents this weekend?" I asked, blithely ignoring his silent appeal and plying him with alcohol. "C'mon, it'll be fun; they'll think you're my boyfriend, and you can snoop around and try to find my old diary. And ask invasive questions."

My old diary is of more a series of abortive attempts at diary keeping than a day-to-day account; I might have filled in every day for a week, then- silence, for maybe a month, four, until I remembered about it again.
So it's patchy, very patchy, as I seem to have been the world's most inattentive diarist.

Going to my parents' place for a-visiting isn't something I do very often due to a number of reasons, but mostly, I suspect, because I just can't entertain myself in the backwater in which they live. Last time I went, I found and flicked through my old diary. Stopping on a random page, I found an entry written by my fifteen year old self;

I guess it must be true, then.

I stopped reading after that page; I try to tune out self-pity as much as possible these days- it's just not an attractive quality and I hear it leads to premature wrinkles.
Unlike selfishness, or those other similar charming traits I hear I possess in abundance.

"I didn't buy this drink to drink, I bought it to stare dejectedly into its depths."

That diary entry has been returning to haunt me periodically since I re-read it at Christmas; I had a long overnight bus trip to get back home again, and spent most of it staring pensively at my reflection in the dark window.
I don't think there's anything that makes me feel lonelier than my reflection in the window of a vehicle at night.

"Loneliness is a terrible thing, don't you think?" the boy said to me once.

I had to put the diary down and hide it away again. With any luck I'll forget where I hid it; that entry makes me want to reach back to myself at fifteen and promise that everything will work out alright.
Which makes me wonder whether everything will, from my nineteen year old perspective.