old journal

i found an old journal today, from the summer after my junior year of high school, so ... three and a half years old. i've never been very good or consistent at keeping journals -- they always seem to peter out after a few weeks -- and this one is no exception. but it is still a remarkable core sample from that time in my life.

if you had asked me before, i would have said that i'm a completely different person then i was then. when i look back, this is around the time (almost exactly) when my grand self-journey, accompanied by a crumbling of faith, began. true, a lot of big scary things have happened to me since then, but the voice that speaks through the pages is familiar. there's quite a bit more optimism and eager excitement, and some charming naive 'discoveries' about writing, but the intent ... it's still me behind there.

some passages from may 23, 2004, my seventeenth birthday, on church: "i've stopped going to church. not forever, i hope." (the irony of this just kills me) "it stopped doing anything for me ... if i am going to go to church, i want deep meaningful discussion." this is one of the main reasons things began to fall apart. i am curious, i want to know about things. i wanted to engage the issues raised by christianity, to dissect them, find out what they were made of. but the more questions i asked, the more the answers didn't add up. and then, in my own patented brand of self-doubt: "but do i really? i thought i was sick of conviction and changing. after a couple episodes of that, i'd had enough -- it never lasts long anyway." this passage blew me away. i'm not really sure what i meant by 'conviction and changing', but i had no idea that my beliefs had started transforming so early, and already so many times.

i then go on into a rant about evangelicals, which also surprised me, since i feel pretty much the same way now as i did then. and this is before the playwriting workshops, before teaching sunday school, before the anthropology classes, it all started here. i wish now that i had kept more journals through those changing times. it would have been fascinating to watch the transformation.

i hope this isn't too recursive, blogging about old journal entries.