{A pocket-sized diary, fronted by a Garfield cartoon, sits on the bed. A gift, complete with lock and key – it has not been opened. Nothing has been written. A boy sits on the floor beside the bed. A week of school has ended, but the boy has not yet learned to feel the relief of a weekend. He is young enough not to know anything other than the day at hand. He moves onto the bed, unlocking the blank diary. He fiddles with the key, locking and unlocking it several times, getting comfortable with how it works, enthralled by the simple mechanics of how to keep a secret. He doesn’t yet know what secrets he would put inside it. He is just starting to be aware of the world.}
Thursday, September 30, 1982
Dear Diary ~
This is my first diary so go easy on me! I’m not sure what I’m supposed to write in this thing. Is it a place for my deepest and darkest secrets? HA. As if I have any to keep. Will this be a time capsule? Will I look back one day and marvel at all the budding brilliance on display? Or will this be what I think it will be, some boring and dull description of the unexciting life of Alan Bennett Ilagan as he navigates the tumultuous rollercoaster of second grade at McNulty School? I think it will be that, but maybe some jewels of wisdom will be uncovered, roughly, along the way.
Should I write this to you, Diary, or to me? To my future self, the old man I will one day be, married with kids and pets and a white picket fence? It is hard to imagine a future that far away. Time is measured in much smaller doses when you’re only in second grade. So I will take things one small step at a time, and the next step is dinner with my family. You will get to know Mom, Dad, and my brother Paul (who I call Powie because I couldn’t pronounce his name when I was little, and it stuck). When Thanksgiving and Christmas come, you will meet my Grammy, and maybe her dog Tonto. We also have a German shepherd named Crystal, who is like a member of the family. She barks at the mailman and goes crazy when we jump in the pool. Sometimes she has seizures in the middle of the night, and Mom and Dad rush us into the spare bedroom where we wait in scared silence until she calms down. They are afraid she will bite or attack us then I think. But she never has, and she only protects us.
I am heading downstairs to dinner next, and if I feel up to it I will write more later. Or maybe tomorrow. Welcome to my life!
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