Monday, June 16, 2008

The Last 15 Years

This is me, for all y'all who didn't know.

I have been tagged by HappyWifeHappyLife (such a great name! Who can be sad with a name like that?) I was tagged not too long ago and you can read about it here...I don't know if I can top those stories, so I have my journals around, and thought I would take a few quotes from them.


~When I was sixteen years old, I discovered boys and went BoycrAzy!! I just opened up my journal from that year and found a letter I wrote "To My Future Husband" dated July 24, 1994, 9:43 p.m., Sunday (wow, I was super detail oriented, eh?) OK, I just read it and I actually can't bring myself to quote any of it on here, just know that it exists!

~On February 15, 1996 I fell in love for the first time. Journal reads like this: "I am in love!!! Oui, c'est l'amour! I'm smitten with one (name left out to protect the dear fellow and his wife, and probably his 5 children)." I was in love with this guy from February 1996 until October 1999...it was that apple pie, straight from the tin kind o' love. I still miss him on quiet evenings.

~On September 18, 1997 I moved to Paris. I started out my journal thus: "It is hard to find a perfect and suitable beginning for a journal of this magnitude. I face the challenge of putting a once-in-a-lifetime-opportunity into mere words."

~On May 25, 1999 I was in an elevator when I realized my life was full of endless possibilities: "I was in the elevator going to work. I was all alone, in the corner, and I looked around me and there I was, in a small, insignificant box. I was boxed in. That's how my life has felt lately, yet I can choose to change it. By pushing a simple button within myself, I could choose from among many floors, each offering something different, something new. Just push a tiny button and the door will open. I only have to choose."

~May 26, 2002: "They say East is our Future and the West is our past...I have moved east. Today is May 26, 2002. I am a college graduate now. I live in Florida now. I got a full time job. I just traveled the country. And I am feeling love for someone again. I still have all the same things bubbling up inside of me...love, hopes, dreams, adventures."

~In September of 2004 I moved to Harlem, began studies at NYU all because of Eleanor Roosevelt. She said, "You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing which you think you cannot do."

~On September 14, 2006 I discovered that I wasn't going to have the skin of a 18 year old forever! "My nightly ritual of putting anti-wrinkle cream on my face is the only thing that ever makes me ponder my wrinkles. Is that what you would call Irony?"

~And finally, last week while I was in the mountains I wrote this: June 12, 2008 "The summer has started--cool and crisp and full of possibilities--possibilities for new friendships, new romance, new love, new laughter, new travels, new thoughts, new new.

Life is good. I can't WAIT to see what the next 15 years brings my way!! Whahoooooo!!!

8 comments:

Alisa said...

Great stories! I really relate to the elevator one. Very elegant picture!

Stina said...

I stopped writing in a daily journal once I went to college but I still have my stacks of notebooks from high school. They are filled with boy crazy thoughts and petty fights with my friends, but I still love looking through them. I love reading my first thoughts about Dave and my relationship when we were 17.

jo said...

i love that picture of you, d'arcy! and i love reading more about your life. it sounds like you do an amazing job of keeping journals, and that's great, cause otherwise we might miss out on some of these beautiful thoughts!

HWHL said...

D'Arcy, I just got back from meeting a friend for coffee at Starbucks and I rushed upstairs to my computer to read your entry and all I have to say is WOW! You're really a wonderful writer.

I didn't know you went to NYU?! Did you know I went to NYU?! Have we had this discussion before, and my 40 year old brain is just not remembering? (Philip Seymour Hoffman was actually one of my classmates... and beer-drinking buddies, I'm proud to admit. Yes, this was many many years ago in 85/86.)

Anyway, LOVED what you had to say.

And the picture is gorgeous. YOU are gorgeous, inside and out!

Jessica Steed said...

D'Arcy, I love your post.
What a good way to remember the last 15 years.
You are a great writer.

Michelle said...

Dear D'Arcy,
You are pretty. I think I'm going to invest in some wrinkle cream.

Unknown said...

Thanks everyone! You're kind to read along and indulge me in some memories.

HWHL: We have NEVER had that conversation before!! I love that we went to the same school. I so would have loved to be drinking buddies with PSH. I love him, I think he is so incredibly talented!!!

Thanks for the tag. It was fun to go through some of the old journals. I have a ton of them, all the same size, same make, and a different color for each year....a bit pathetic, but I am a creature of habit.

Hey, It's Ansley said...

Now I wish I had kept a journal! So much hope, and love, and courage!

And yes, I agree about the wrinkle cream, the more time I spend staring in a mirror to improve my looks, the more I find to pick apart.