Don't Peek (The Diaries of a Teenage Girl)

by Marita A. Hansen

  FRIDAY

  22

  JUNE

  Things to do this week:

  -Enrol in driving test.

  -Ring Shena and get test papers.

  -Do letters for employers.

  -Send away letters.

  MONDAY

  25

  JUNE

  Darius said he thinks he loves me. He wasn’t completely sure before, because he hasn’t felt it for any other or said it, and he was quite pessimistic about it. Then yesterday he said he loves me, so it is genuine, because if he didn’t mean it he wouldn’t say it because that’s just who he is. I’m unsure about it, because I too haven’t felt it. All I felt for other guys are crushes or attraction, but being with Darius is different. Darius said after saying that before, that he is quite certain that he loves me, but doesn’t want me to tell anyone yet until he’s gotten used to it and is more sure about it.

  I really want to go to his mum’s house during the midterm break for a holiday before work starts, because I have finished tech officially on Wednesday and completely on Friday. It really frustrated me that I have to argue with my parents about whether I can go or not. I’m 18! I really appreciated when my younger sister went and stood up for me by saying it was stupid about not letting me go. She says it is pathetic about them treating us like 4-year-olds. Well, they’re not treating us like that, but they are very protective over us and it is especially hard when both your older sister and brother has set certain examples that your parents will expect you to turn out like. Lauren admits she made the wrong choice about moving to live with an ex-boyfriend, but it was her choice and she learnt the hard way, and anyway, she was plenty old enough – I think she was 21 at the time. Yes, because I had just turned sixteen and she’s five years older than me. But back to my point, she still doesn’t believe that living with a male is wrong, and I don’t either, and my younger sister wouldn’t either too, but it’s not right in Mum and Dad’s eyes, because they grew up in different times. Now it is quite alright, but not to them or the very strict Yugoslav family.

  THURSDAY

  5

  JULY

  On Sunday Darius and I left to go to New Plymouth to visit his mother, stepfather, and stepbrother. The trip took 5 hours and 15 minutes. The extra 15 minutes was because we went through Cambridge when we shouldn’t have. It was funny.

  When we got there Darius’s mother and stepfather showed us around New Plymouth. It is a small city. We stayed till Wednesday and it was great fun. On Monday we climbed up Mt. Egmont to touch snow. For me and Darius’s stepbrother, it was the first time we’ve ever seen real snow. I got some really great photos. That night we saw videos – ‘Turner and Hooch’, which I had already seen, and ‘Rainman’, which was excellent. Dustin Hoffman is a very, very good actor.

  On Tuesday, Darius, his stepbrother, and I went and looked at the shopping centre, which was very big, much like the Manukau one. We also walked a bit around town, but decided to go back because it was raining. That night, also with Darius’s mum, we saw ‘Red October’, which is an excellent movie with Sean Connery and Sam Neil acting in it. Sam Neil’s a New Zealand actor.

  On Wednesday, Darius and I left for a long drive home. We stopped off at the Waitomo Caves to see the glow worms and the caves. At the first cave I was so pissed off that I couldn’t take photos, because I forgot my flash. But it didn’t matter in the glow worm’s cave, because you couldn’t take photos there anyway. That cave I really enjoyed. We went on a little boat trip as well, through the cave to see the glow worms. I wanted to stay longer in New Plymouth, but it was lucky that my parents let me go at all, so I must be thankful.

  Darius watched the Carpenter story with me when we got back home. He does love me definitely. He said so many times. He said that I am the first woman he has felt like this for. I’m scared he won’t get into Auckland University next year, because he would have to go to Waikato University. I’m going to enrol for my driving test tomorrow and I’m going to start driving a car too, because if he does have to go down there I will be able to visit him and he can come up and see me. I love him too.

  Darius’s mother is a brilliant knitter. The stuff she knitted for her sons are so excellent, and she is really quick. I’m going to learn to knit too, so I can make beautiful things like that eventually, but it will be after a lot of practice.

  I’ve got to get a job soon so I can quit Kendals and start properly saving for a car.

  My younger sister is going to be a bridesmaid as well as me now for our older sister’s wedding, because she was being a pain. I think she was jealous. The wedding is getting closer and closer, it’s after my birthday.

  Darius’s birthday is soon, I’ve got to do something really excellent for him.

  WEDNESDAY

  22

  AUGUST

  Darius wants to marry me. He said it yesterday after we had gone to a Peruvian restaurant with Nina and her boyfriend. It came as a real surprise, especially with the way he feels about marriage, but he said that he loves me so much, and I love him. Marriage is such a scary thought, because it’s such a big step and a huge commitment to make. He said he knows that we are too young now so we can wait a couple of years, but he wants to live with me forever. For the rest of his life he wants to be with me. He said that he is lost without me, in those words. He said we should get engaged, then said it would be best if we don’t say anything before my sister’s wedding. Maybe next year is a good time to get engaged.

  It is so scary. He said to think about it and that is what I’m doing. Thinking and writing. He is my first boyfriend.

  I want to be with him. Maybe I’m too young to think about it now – I don’t know. I love him. WOW! It’s scary.

  Darius loves me so much that, even though he’s scared of marriage because of what happened with his parent’s one, he still wants to marry me. WOW! Man, it was quite a surprise when he said that. Marriage! WOW!

  I want to be with him now, right now. I love him. I love him!

  Man, will Mum and Dad get a shock. I’d probably cry at my own wedding. Lauren’s wedding is in two weeks from Saturday, and I can’t wait. I want to catch the bouquet of flowers. Darius actually proposed to me! He said he would never betray me, and I won’t betray him either.

  THURSDAY

  23

  AUGUST

  PROS of marriage

  _________________

  Love

  Being together

  Sharing everything

  Children (later)

  Freedom

  Own home

  Living together (might be different to live with?)

  CONS of marriage

  _________________

  Age – so young

  Career

  Income

  Uncertainty. It’s forever – big step – scary.

  FRIDAY

  7

  SEPTEMBER

  I am now nineteen.

  TUESDAY

  27

  NOVEMBER

  I love Darius so much, and this is for real now. It’s the type of realness that warrants a life together. Last night I had a really vivid dream. It was about Darius and I. I can’t really remember where it was placed, but it was about us in a weird place with weird people, and I think we tried to get away, and Darius got caught in something magical and was turned into a seventeen-year-old, and so he didn’t know me because he didn’t know me at that age, so he was with another girl in a shower having sex and I was crying so much – like having lost my only love, and then someone told me how to change him back to twenty again by me hugging another guy. I was unsure about this, but I love Darius too much to let him go, so a guy came out, one who was after me, and we hugged and Darius changed back, and then the person who helped us told us, or me, that we won’t remember any of this and so everything was back to normal, except for the girl who Darius was with at the age of seventeen, who had a baby and sent it away to another country and forgot about everything.

/>   The other dream that came was about a whole lot of people being in a warehouse and I was with this Greek family who were going to perform in front of the crowd, and in this Greek family was a boy my age and he was flirting with me on stage, but so as no one else could see, but he started coming on heavy and I was trying to push him away from me so that Darius wouldn’t see.

  The other part of that dream was hazy, and was about us trying to go to the toilet, but people were trying to embarrass us by throwing water over the toilets and drenching us (this could have been related to my inability to go to the toilet properly for the past week). And another dream was about Darius and I walking a long way through the country and basically getting lost, then finding our way out by a motorway, which suddenly appeared and had other people walking along it. Then those people turned around, because they couldn’t go any further, and we just ended up going towards the shops.

  Dreams are really strange and right now they scare me. I can remember them so well and for a long time. I am writing at 11:00 pm at night about dreams that happened last night. These dreams scare me because they are confusing and they make me nervous, especially the first one when I thought Darius had betrayed me, which nearly tore me apart. Though, I knew I would do anything to get him back, including forgetting what had happened in the past.

  I really love Darius and it would tear me apart if he betrayed me for real. He said he would never two-time me and that he loves me so much. I can honestly say I want to marry him and spend the rest of my life with him. But, it is so scary that I am trapped in this situation at home where I have to have permission for everything we do together. See, he believes that it is best to live together before marriage so we can test the waters before leaping in, but Mum and Dad believe that the latter is the best and I’m caught in between. I can’t lose Darius no matter what; there is too much love on both sides for it to be ruined. I am the first girl Darius has ever loved. He said he made a commitment to me and I have made one to him too. We can never break that commitment or love or bonding.

  A practice letter written for a CV (no date included).

  Art is a way of life now. I have been doing it for as long as I can remember, and have carried it through high school and right into tech. At tech I acquired a graphics and design certificate. I enjoy graphic art very much, especially detailed and complicated works such as seen in illustration. Also, I enjoy visualising and have a good sense of what would look right in a lot of different medias. The subject of English, and everything that is classed under it, such as good communication on paper, is another interest for me. I enjoy writing and meeting people.

  I have also gained School Certificate, Sixth Form Certificate as well as my Graphic Art Certificate. In addition, I have got a department diploma and I’m experienced on the Apple Mac and Wang computers in Pagemaker and Freehand. For my past-times I enjoy sport, which is karate, and at the moment I’m a green belt in training for a blue belt. I also enjoy badminton, running, and at present I’m a member of my local gym. I have enjoyed team sports in the past, such as touch rugby, netball, basketball, etc. I enjoy meeting and working with people. I can work well in a team situation as well as under high pressure, and have experienced tight deadlines with tech.

  At the moment I am working at Kendals department store during the Christmas break, which was my part-time job during the year. I have also worked part-time at Garmers and in Lana’s Coffee Lounge when I was younger. I am experienced with dealing with money and can budget well.

  I am open-minded and am always ready to learn and take in other people’s ideas and techniques. I get on well with my fellow workers and have always worked to the best of my ability.

  Diary 1991

  THURSDAY

  21

  FEBRUARY

  I am really getting depressed about my job situation – zilch! I went for an interview on Wednesday at the brewery in East Tamaki for a graphic artist job, but I most likely won’t get it. I just can’t stand not having somewhere to go to. All my life I’ve had things done for me and places to go to every day. Please let me get this job! I was probably the youngest and least experienced person going for it. The most fucking introverted and shy shit there is. I wish I wasn’t so shy. It sux. I need a job badly. I hate working at Kendals. The job sux, but the people are nice. I feel embarrassed working there, especially if someone I know comes in. I stress that it is only a part-time job. I know I shouldn’t be ashamed of it, but I am. A shop assistant’s job sux, it’s demeaning. Like you’re not good enough or talented enough to get anything else. I don’t feel talented art wise at all. I’m too slow, so I don’t feel talented. I’m ashamed of some of my work and why won’t anyone hire me if I am talented. I need a job to go to, not a sleep in. Even when I’m overly pressured I feel better than I am feeling now.

  I’m depressed.

  FRIDAY

  19

  APRIL

  Dear Diary,

  It has been a while since I have written properly for you, and since then I’ve had many frustrations and aggravations in my pursuit of work. I went for an interview today and was really upset after I got home.

  The interview was arranged by an employment agency and it was at a costume place. It was a very amateurish place. I had to walk there with my heavy folder and my Ken Wahl picture, and by the time I got there my back was drenched with sweat and my arm was ready to drop off.

  The employer was a weird lady and the work looked far from what I’m looking for. I had to catch a taxi home and it cost $5. My stuff was just too heavy to carry back again.

  I suppose, Diary, that if I get the job I will have to take it. But, I do not want to give up my job at the Ad Agency, where I work every Wednesday. I thought that since this job is close to home, and is from 12-7pm, I might be able to work in the mornings at the Ad Agency, which is just for experience, not money, other than the bus fare they give me so I’m not losing anything by going there.

  I’m also going for another job as an unarmed combat and self-defence instructor tomorrow.

  Well, I’m going to get ready for work so I’ll write later. And I promise, Diary, that I will write everything I think and feel and do in here, or I might get a padlocked diary for the serious stuff.

  FRIDAY

  10

  MAY

  Dear Diary,

  I have a lot of things that I wish to say in you about my past, future, and what I feel inside. Everything that I will write in you will be uncensored, unlike my other diaries in which I was too scared to write about the serious stuff just in case someone happened to read it, and so they contained only the trivial life of a frustrated teenager. I’m sure at the time it seemed serious enough to me, but it took on the form of a babbling teenage girl’s memoirs. I do admit they contained some serious emotions and problems, but they were mainly hidden away in poems or riddles, so no one would understand what I was saying. I even read Darius one of my riddles while in New Plymouth, and he didn’t work it out. Here’s one part of the passage that I read to him.

  “...the only boy supposed to carry on the name and pass it to his off-spring, of which he cannot do without killing his feelings. Feelings that caused rebellion, because of the difference and opposition it caused to one’s parents. Parents hurt because of this different being that has abandoned tradition for his life in another sphere.”

  (A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR – I cannot state who I was writing about and referring to in this riddle, as it would be a breach of their privacy. Therefore, I must blank out their name so their identity remains unknown. Sorry for the inconvenience and I hope you will understand)

  The riddle was written about _______, who left home around the age of eighteen, because he’s homosexual. His parents, I’m sure, are still hoping that he will come back and revert his sexual preferences to females. But how can he do that? You can’t just change your sexual attitudes like that, or ‘revert back’ to something when there was nothing there in the first place. I’m sure that if someone w
as to tell me that I should have sexual fantasies about females I would think that they were gross and I’m sure _______ feels the same in his case. But, I’m not saying that I want him to be homosexual, and yes, I am hoping he will be like an average male who has fantasies of Elle McPherson or Michele Pfeiffer, but I know that is unrealistic thinking. And anyway, it’s none of my business, it’s his life not mine. I will love him no matter what.