Date: 6-27-90
Week: 4
Weather: Summer

Today I let my catapiller go because It was dieing but now its better I found out hoo is my boyfirend It is  Jesse — he is relly nice but wehen he comes over tatong always yell. Roxane

So, first…I was obsessed with little creatures when I was young. Insects, reptiles, small rodents; I loved them all and had them in my room in mason jar or shoe boxes all the time. Apparently, this day I had a caterpillar. I actually remember letting this one go. It was dying, I mean, how would it live? A nine-year-old would have no idea what to feed or how to care for a plump caterpillar just trying to hang upside down to morph into a butterfly. I released him, but in a sort of rocky culvert next to my bedroom window so I could keep an eye on him. It’s like I thought getting some fresh air would somehow revitalize him. He died shortly thereafter.

Jesse grew up right across the street from us. I don’t know how I found out he was my boyfriend, or who decided it, but it seems like it was a big mystery that I finally figured out this day. Tatong is what we, in my family, call my mom’s dad, who was living with us at the time I wrote this. Not that Jesse would ever read this blog, but if he did, I’m sure he wouldn’t want his identity in any way associated with the happenings of these posts.

Can you really have a boyfriend at 9-years-old? Who decides your boyfriend/girlfriend? Maybe some of the next entries will reveal. Jesse and I had very much a love/hate relationship. I remember hating him at times for incessantly picking on me. In that case, this entry explains a lot. We are literally at a time with my entries where hitting and making fun of a girl on the playground means you like her.

Date: 6-30-90
Week: 5
Weather: Summer

Dear Diary,
We Did not Do much Today But we got a new car and mom is taking drivers school she is going to be done at the end of this moth. Dad went campig and I went with him. got to go. Bye, Roxane

My mom and dad met while my dad was stationed in the Philippines for the Navy. They married and my mom moved to the United  States at the age of 23. She had never driven a car before and didn’t get a driver’s license until the age of 36. I remember pretty vividly taking our first drive with her after she got her license. She was, and still is, the most apprehensive driver I had ever seen. Her first car was a brand new 1990 Geo Prizm LSI. She loved that car, and was extremely careful with it. Oddly enough, some 10 years later, that Geo ended up being my car, which I drove throughout most of high school and college. I was so proud of it, probably a carry-over for how proud my mom was when she first brought it home.

The Geo!

Date: 6-30-90
Week: 5
Weather: Summer

Dear Diary,
Today I got very upset Rona is being a very big snot I wanted to scream and yell we were going to go camping but Bill did not show up and mom is always yelling. Roxane
I am mad

Punctuate much? Geez.

Rona is my older sister. I was 9 years old when I made this entry, and until the age of 12, I refused to even sleep in the same room with her. Sad thing is, we shared a room! There were about 2 years where I literally slept on the living room couch because of my disdain for my sister. I can’t even remember why now. I don’t know what she did this day, but I was pretty mad at her.

Bill was a friend of my dad’s. If I remember correctly, he and Dad worked together. Bill used to spend a lot of time with our family. He would pick me up from school if my parents were busy, or come and get me in the middle of the day if I needed to go home sick or something. I recall him being very helpful. Dad would have been in his 30’s when I wrote this; not far from my age now. If Bill was anything like my current shady friends, he probably said we’d go camping, then never called to come through, which disappointed me. As a family we spent a lot of time outdoors either camping, or in an RV, or on a lake somewhere. Dad always had a boat of some kind. I learned to fish and bait my own hook at a really young age. I’m hoping later my entries will reveal the lake as some of my most fond and most hated of memories.

Date: 6-28-90
Week: 4
Weather: Summer

Hi diaray
I’m going thoye (through) a depreshen fase and I keep crying I don’t feel very good latly I get really dizzy and can berly walk, I have lot’s and lot’s of miscto (mosquito) bits and can’t help it. Bye

Date: 6-29-90
Week: 4
Weather: Summer

Yesterday was relly fun we went to stars and got coke, new kids cards and cookies We walke all the way to provo. I got my Bike fixed and I might go to the mall we went to sislers to. Roxane

So, obviously I wrote the 6-28-90 entry in the morning, we had our “really fun” day, and the next day I wrote the 6-29-90 entry about 6-28-90. That’s the only way to explain my 9-year-old bi-polar disorder. Why, at 9-years-old, would I be depressed? I don’t really think the dizziness was anything more than just standing up or getting out of the bed too quickly, but apparently this was a very big deal, and it looks like mosquito bites only added to my hellacious ordeal.

And yet, the very next day I say how great my dizzy, depressed, mosquito ridden day was! If this is how most 9-year-old girls are, parents everywhere should worry.

I think Stars was the local grocery store. At this time my family was living in Springfield, Utah and my mom didn’t have her driver’s license yet (she immigrated from the Philippines and had no reason to drive there; she didn’t get her license until she was 36- years-old, probably 2 years after this entry). Whenever we needed to get groceries, my two brothers, my sister, and I would walk with mom to the next town where it was located to help her carry them home. It was probably the same distance as walking from Bryant to Benton on the I-30 service road (for you AR readers). On more than one occasion I remember strangers picking us up and driving all 5 of us into town or back to our house, a thought now that is horrifying. But, it was summer, after all, and very hot…I’m sure seeing a little Asian lady with 4 kids walking down a highway, all carrying grocery bags full of food was a pitiful enough site to make anyone want to stop and help.

Pretty funny to see we got New Kids on the Block trading cards.

I don’t know what happened to my bike that it needed to be fixed, and I think Sizzler’s was a restaurant.

Date: 4-24-90
Week: 4
Weather: Spring

Dear Diary

Today was good exept for p.e. Im in thered grad and I had a out on kickball
I never had one Before and I will never have one agiane
I am 9 yars old now so I am growing up
go night

Wow. Didn’t realize how much I was into kickball and not having any outs. DRAMA. I vaguely remember this day. I was having quite a run during recess on the kickball field at my elementary school. I was often first pick for teams, I always played pitcher, and I recall thinking I was better than a lot of the boys that played with us. . . except for one . . . Michael.

Michael thought he was awesome at everything, and taunted everyone during our games. He often pitched for whatever team my team was playing against and he would tease anyone else who tried to pitch by saying they sucked, or by just taking over completely because he thought they weren’t doing a good enough job. On this day, he was pitching. It was my turn up to kick. Just to tick me off, Michael motioned to all of the outfield to move in. When the ball came to me, I kicked as hard as I could. The ball went straight up into the air, and right into the arms of Mean Michael. I was out.

Honestly, I remember being stunned; like I didn’t understand what was happening. Michael caught the ball like nothing phased him, straightened up, and stood there glaring at me with a smirk on his face, bouncing the rubber ball and waiting for me to get back to my team. I was mortified.

I don’t know what I meant by “so I’m growing up.” It seems like I was telling myself something to the extent of “I can make my own destiny” by making this vow not to have anymore outs again. Or, maybe I was just tired . . . I mean, I did write “go night” instead of “good.”

Date: 4-22-90
Week: 3
Weather: Spring

Daer Dear Diary,
how are you? On my Birthday my mom gave me a pair of shoses but they were to big my favret store shoe store is payless it has the Best shoses and that is where is where I get my shose all the time and my new shose to.

I come from a relatively large family of six. My dad was in the military (Navy recruiter) and my mom worked at a nursing home. I have two brothers and a sister. Obviously from this post you can tell my parents weren’t exactly swimming in money; I thought Payless was shoe heaven. Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with Payless Shoes or that my parents shopped there for our shoes as kids (p.s. I still shop there today), my point here is just that as a kid, I didn’t even know Dillard’s or Baker’s in the malls. We rarely ever went to the mall. My parents taught me well. Appreciate and take care of what I get, no matter where it comes from. Or, maybe it’s just as simple as ignorance was bliss.

On my ninth birthday I received a diary as a gift. I don’t remember who gave it to me, but whoever did should know this present stirred my creative juices and sparked what is known today as my writing ability. I say this in jest. I don’t claim to be some fantastically creative writer. I don’t have a crazy imagination, nor do I think most of my writings are interesting. Suffice it to say, this diary holds my first entries, and thus, my introduction to a world that I believe I have, at the very least, gotten to know better than I did 19 years ago (at least, god, I hope so).

As humiliating as I’m certain this will be, I think I’m going to share these writings with the online world. Stupid, some might say. My thought is, if nothing else, it will be enjoyable for my friends to laugh at, educational for parents to (possibly) understand what their young daughters are going through, and insightful for people to understand why I am who I am today.


For naysayers, please comment. Maybe I need some sense kicked into me


This diary has smelled the same since the day I received it – like baby powder. I don’t know how, but to this day, after several moves, odd storing places, and different climates, the light scent of baby powder still lingers on every page. There is a locket on the side, although I have no idea where the key is. For the time I’ve had the diary, I’ve just kept it hidden in drawers or under my mattress to keep it safe; no lock necessary.

Below are images of the front, inside cover, and first “insert” page. The outside is pretty plain, but makes no mistake about what the book is, so if anyone were to stumble upon it, they’d know instantly it is a diary for a young girl; also signified by the first insert page with the pastel picture of the girl, flowers, and butterfly. My mom took the liberty of writing my name, address, and phone number on the front page. I remember owning a label maker when I was younger, and obviously, I felt my mom’s writing would not suffice, so I also labeled my name on the opposite side. To protect myself and people in my past, I will be blacking out any identifying information, including most first names as those people are still in my life today.








So, here we go! I’ll post an image of the actual page, and type out what the text reads, including all misspellings and grammar issues.


Date: 4-21-90
Week: 3 (I never knew what I was supposed to write here. I often flipped back and forth between what week of the month it was and just leaving it blank because I thought I was writing the wrong thing)
Weather: Spring


Dear Diary:
I selabratted my BirthDay and my Boyfriend came to it too! It was alot of fun we broke a pinuata and played barbe. My BirthDay is on the 22th of April. this year it was on a sunday and we had it on the 21st I was named after my Ant her name is Roxane.

There is a line on the bottom of each page that reads, “The secret of success is constancy of purpose.” For some reason, I sign my name underneath this line of text on the bold line of the page decoration. I’m almost certain I didn’t understand what this meant, and thought that I was supposed to sign it as a promise to keep my diary entry a secret.





Yep, at 9, I was a Scripps Spelling Bee champ in the making, j/k. I don’t remember this birthday very well. I remember breaking a pinata at more than one of my birthday parties, and during one in particular I made all the kids throw the candy back onto the ground, in a pile after the pinata had busted open so that we could “sort the candy evenly.” One of my not-so-fond memories. My family video taped that party, and I watched it several years ago, which only proved to me that even at a young age, I was always fair and organized, but also incredibly bossy and demanding.

I don’t remember who my “boyfriend” was either. I can only guess it was a boy named Garrett who lived up the road from my family, or the only other Catholic child in my neighborhood, Jesse, who lived across the street from us. We lived in Utah; we were surrounded by Mormans, and while I mostly despised Jesse, I thought for some reason we had a bond because we were different than all the other neighborhood kids. When they were all at church, Jesse would come over and play with my brothers. There was another boy in my neighborhood I regularly called my boyfriend, his name was Brandon. His hands, arms, legs, and neck were covered in burn scars from where a babysitter placed him a scalding hot bath as a baby. I can recall him coming to one of my birthday parties and being overly excited to see him there. Whether or not it was this birthday, I don’t know.

One thing I didn’t acknowledge in my entry is that I was named after two of my aunts. My first name comes from my dad’s sister, and my middle name, my mom’s. For some reason I never liked my middle name. I think it’s because it was so unusual a name that after telling people what it was the first time, they always made me repeat it a second and sometimes a third time, which made me uncomfortable. I will not divulge what my middle name is here, online.

So, that was the first entry. I’ve read ahead and some of these will definitely to be lame, but I think it’s possible that writing out certain memories will be somewhat therapeutic.

Made a special trip to Target for sunscreen to keep in my car for these awesome occasions.