The Perils of Journaling

Thought I'd read through an old journal tonight, to see if there was anything lurking in there that I could tighten up and post here in a bit of gratuitous ego-stroking (is there any other kind). Having done so, I want nothing so much as to find the nearest large rock and drop it on my head. I'm apparently a very patterned individual, the same mistakes and neuroses coming round again and again no matter the relationship.

I did find this little tidbit that might explain one of my stylistic quirks:

It must be my latent Catholicism that makes me consider things in threes, or maybe it's the structure of the language with its comparatives of good, better, best. The trinity, the states of matter, the measure of time, the three little pigs, the bowls of porridge in front of Goldilocks...

Apparently plasma wasn't around when I learned the states of matter in grade school, or it wasn't discussed in polite company.

I'm sure I've been saving this journal so I could read it one day and see how far I've come. Unfortunately, that progress must be measured more in laps completed around the same damn track than distance in a marathon. I still need more from others than they can possibly give. I still miss my family the way we used to be, before Grandpa died, before we all scattered from Illinois. Before I came out and my dad went nuts.

So many episodes I wish I could get a do-over for, both the innocuous one-timers and the excruciatingly drawn out hopeless entanglements I read about on those pages and scream at myself to GET OVER IT ALREADY and start behaving like a functioning adult.

Remind me, someone, to burn this fucking thing before I get too much older and run the risk of the book falling into my effects, for horrified descendants to read about the absolute nutjob great-grandma Boltgirl was.