Darn, I Was Good
Have you heard of this thing called “cringe therapy” wherein people dig up embarrassing things they wrote during adolescence and publish them in a book or read them in front of a crowd of drunks? Well, I’m not sure what’s therapeutic about it, but the idea is most intriguing.
So, I went looking through my old journals to see if there was anything truly cringe-worthy to be found. The journals from those terrible teens were actually lost, but I did find something from when I was thirteen, still mostly flat chested, but on the edge of puberty and rebellion.
It was a spiral notebook from something we did called “Family Dialogue.” My parents picked this up from a Marriage Encounter retreat they went on through their church. They would ask us questions to help us “get in touch with our feelings,” and everyone in the family was supposed to go into a quiet corner of the house and write their answer to the question.
Now, granted, I look back on these exercises as a really strong growth experience in my life. I can make fun of it, but I’m really glad they did it.
With that said, looking back on the things I wrote, I can only say, I was a little robot. Nearly everything I wrote was a regurgitation of a lecture my parents had given me before we wrote down the question of the day. They’d lecture about violence in TV and cartoons, about the evils of atheists like Madalyn Murray O’Hair trying to take Christ out of Christmas, about finding Jesus in pop music, because when Journey sang, “Here I am, with open arms,” it was like they were inviting the spirit into their hearts.
Even though I was already smoking and drinking by thirteen, I sure was a “good” girl. Thank God I’ve been Saved