Let's pretend this is a diary. . .

. . . and that I am eight once again.

Yesterday I went on a bike ride. It was fun. I saw an old man in a kilt walking down the bike path. That was weird. I ate at Arby's because I was super hungry and it sounded good. I was right, it was really good. Then I went home and did nothing. Then I went to Ty's house and we cooked burgers. I ate a burger [yes, I did actually eat a burger] because they forced me to. Later, I felt a little sick because I haven't had red meat in a long time because it upsets my stomach.

[end diary]

The interesting thing about reading old diary entries is the perspective I get. In one sense a diary is good to help you remember something. Its mainly good, however, as a help to remember things in a certain way. For example, I remember when I was about eight (whenever I imagine myself really young I am always about eight) seeing a water moccasin in Georgia. It was somewhat sensational. So it made it into my diary with just the bare facts and the customary summary, "it was cool." Even more sensational I remember learning, approximately 11 years and 9 months ago, that my mom was going to have a baby. I just wrote something about how I hoped for a boy and Hannah hoped for a girl. Of course, it was a boy. Benjamin Edward Noland. Ben. His birthday is tomorrow, 11.


I was a different person then, and the world was a different place. I can never return to the time of 1997, or '98 or even fifteen minutes ago. When I remember things now, I can't help but remember as a 20 year old in college. Unless. . . I read it in that old diary. Then my mind is thrust into the unsteady pen of a freckly too-tall eight year old who hoped for a little brother. For a moment, I remember myself as the boy who wrote down those things.