Description: Preface When Dr. Karl Wolff first suggested publishing the journal that I kept during my junior year in boarding school, I thought I hadn''t heard him correctly. He''s been interested in me--or maybe I should say my case--since I was under his psychiatric care, and we talk on the phone every year or so. But I hadn''t seen the journal since I handed it over to him in the hospital thirty years ago, and we discussed it on only one occasion, when he made it clear I needed to put that period of my life behind me. Giving up writing in the journal was a first step. My instinctive response to publication was to say no. I didn''t write the journal with the intention of having anyone else read it. And Dr. Wolff kept it only because of a promise he made to my mother before I left the hospital. I wrote it to preserve my sixteen-year-old self. Or at least that''s what I thought at the time. Besides, I have a daughter who is the same age I was when I kept this journal, and I want to protect her. I don''t feel that she needs to know everything about me. Dr. Wolff reassured me. All the names would be changed. It would be impossible to recognize me in the person of the narrator. It would even be difficult to recognize the school. Above all, he felt the journal would be an invaluable addition to the literature on female adolescence at a time when risk-taking behavior has reached epidemic proportions. He happened to reread it while packing up his office before retirement and was struck by how convincing my writing was. I''m not sure I agree with him. But I have always been intrigued by the journals that girls keep. They are like dollhouses. Once you look inside them, the rest of the world seems very far away, even unbelievable. If only we had the power to leap outside ourselves at such moments, we would spare ourselves so much pain and fear. I''m not talking about truth or falsehood but about surviving. I agreed to Dr. Wolff''s suggestion with reservations. If, after reading my journal, I felt he was right, I would allow him to arrange for its publication. Dr. Wolff also asked me to write an afterword, as a kind of closure on the experience. He felt it was relatively rare for someone suffering from borderline personality disorder complicated by depression and psychosis to recover and never have another "episode," as he so kindly put it. He was sure my reactions to the journal would be illuminating. I can''t begin to judge that. When I opened this notebook, I found the razor blade I had hidden among the pages so long ago. Dr. Wolff had kept it as part of the "clinical picture," as he explained. It looked utterly incongruous. It was just a razor blade. And the words on the page were just that--words in a familiar handwriting. To anyone who wonders whether it''s possible to survive adolescence, that''s as much as I can offer of reassurance. September September 10 My mother dropped me off at two. Practically everyone is back. Except for Lucy. I can''t wait for her to come so that we can unpack together. I''m going to write in my journal until she''s here. After my mother left, I felt an emptiness in my stomach that spread up through my throat to the back of my eyes. I didn''t cry, even though I probably would have felt better afterward. I needed to hold on to that feeling, that pain. If Lucy had been here, she would have distracted me. I had a moment of panic when I said good-bye to my mother. I almost begged her not to leave me here. It''s so strange. I''ve been looking forward to school for the past month. I was even excited when I got my new uniforms in the mail. The light blue spring skirt was as stiff as cardboard. I had to wash it before I could wear it. I''m glad I''m not a day student, worried about how I look on the train ride home. They sneak into the bathroom at the station and put on makeup and change from their saddle shoes into loafers, in case they run into boys they know on the train. I''ve seen them waiting for the train with their skirts hiked above their knees, and it''s hard to tell that they are wearing a uniform. We boarders couldn''t care less if we look like nurses. Now that I''m here, I want to run away. I''m always afraid to leave my mother. I''m afraid that I''ll never see her again. I want to run after her like a little girl, grab onto her skirt, grope for her hand, sniffle. Instead I stand very stiff and don''t say a word. "Can''t you at least say good-bye?" she says. After a few days, I get caught up in school. Then I''m glad to be away from her, even though she''s all I have left. I like to get letters from her, but I hate it when she calls. I never call her. Her voice is so heavy. It pulls me down. I''m always scared when I''m called to the phone. It''s incredibly hard for me to put the receiver to my ear. It wants to swallow me. I''m struggling to lift it, while the person on the other end is hanging in space, waiting for my voice. From my window, I watched my mother speed down the drive. I lost sight of her car behind the Workshop. When she turned left onto the avenue, I could see it again, a streak of blue flashing through the black fence. And then she was gone. My mother always drives too fast; she doesn''t care what happens to her. Lucy''s mother would never drive like that. I stood at the window for a long time. Then I turned around and looked at my room, my new room, with my trunk and bags and boxes piled up in the middle of the floor. It isn''t as wonderful as I had thought it would be all summer long. The walls are dirty. The girl who lived here last year left smudged black fingerprints in odd places. There''s nothing on the floor. Under the window is a chair with wooden arms, covered in tan and pink flowered material. It''s not very inviting. I think I''ll put some pillows on the sill and turn it into a window seat. I thought it would be the best room in the Residence. When I''ve unpacked and Lucy is next door, it will be different. I got tired of waiting for Lucy, so I took a walk up to the train station. In the stationery store next to the drugstore, I found an old French composition book with a mottled crimson cover and a thick black spine, like a real book, but with blank pages. Somehow it ended up in the back of the store, forgotten. I grabbed it and walked up to the register, hugging it to my chest, afraid someone might snatch it away from me. It''s exactly like the journals my father used to keep. It was a sign, and I had to buy it. Now I''m going to fill it with words, the way he filled his notebooks: the pages, the margins, the endpapers all covered with little notes that made no sense to anyone else. I won''t tell anyone about it, not even Lucy. I read the Claudine books over the summer. They were a replacement for school, which I missed so much. I hope the words flow from my pen onto the paper the way they did for Colette: the exact words I need. I''ve got Claudine at School on my desk, for inspiration. She knows what it''s like to be shut up in a place like this, where all your emotions are focused on the girls around you, where you dream of a boyfriend but only feel comfortable with your arm around another girl''s waist. Already I''ve put too many sad thoughts down on these pages. I have to start all over again, very slowly and carefully. Everything has to be perfect. I''m not in a hurry. First, I open the notebook on my desk, flatten the smooth pages ruled with green lines, and uncap my fountain pen, the one my mother gave me for my sixteenth birthday. It''s also crimson and feels heavy in my hand. I fill an old glass inkwell that I found on a desk in the study hall with black ink from a bottle. The acrid smell lingers in the air. It is the smell of a writer. I start at the beginning and put a number in the top right corner of each page. There are 155 pages, and I''m going to write on both sides. Three hundred and ten pages, that should be enough. It took me a long time to get used to school, not to feel that everyone was looking at me and feeling sorry for me all the time. They hated feeling sorry for me. I think I''ll be able to be happy this year, sharing a suite with Lucy. That was my dream. Next year I have to think about college. I''ll have to start all over again. I can''t believe how lucky we were. I chose a low number in the lottery, and we got our first choice. My room is larger, but Lucy''s has a fireplace, and we have our own bathroom between the two rooms. It''s so private and spacious. We can go into each other''s rooms whenever we want, and Mrs. Halton will never know. We just have to make sure that we are quiet and neat and don''t make her think we are the type to cause trouble. No one ever thinks Lucy is the type to cause trouble. She''s too sweet. Last year, Mrs. Dunlap was all over us, barging in during quiet hour to make sure we were alone. I hated that. This year we''ve arranged everything much better. I don''t want this year ever to end. I''m going to stay in my room until Lucy comes. I don''t want to see anyone else, only her. The door. It wasn''t Lucy. The new girl from across the corridor came over. It''s strange to have a new girl in the eleventh grade. And she''s managed to get a big room by herself with a bathroom and a fireplace. Everyone but Sofia is together on one corridor this year. Sofia wanted a single, and she didn''t have a good number. She had to settle for a small room in the front, but at least it''s just around the corner from us. Only the rooms on the second and third floors have fireplaces. Usually the new girls get the tiny maids'' rooms on the fourth floor. That''s all that''s left after everyone else chooses. They''re

Please Wait