All My Writings Went Away, Twice

I have always scribbled down my thoughts. I have spiral notebooks, bound journal books, loose pages, notes on train schedules, websites, etc., and they are all over the place. This wasn't always the case. When I was younger, I kept everything in a single folder or computer. But having them stolen away from me twice has caused me to not only keep my writing scattered but, because of that, probably write less and with less momentum.

When I was in middle school, like many people at that age, I had thoughts that were all over the place. Some good and many bad. I wrote poems about people that I had crushes on and tirades against people that I had grudges against.

I remember my first folder was a pleather booklet that held a small notepad and had slots on the front and the back where I could place loose pages. This booklet held all of my thoughts.

A girl, Brandy, who was friends with Shirley (who was the sister of Mario, who was in my grade and lived in my building), took my notebook one afternoon. (She was not in the book anywhere.) I always had it in my bag or with me, in case I had something to put down. One day after spending some time at Mario's apartment, when I got home, I realized that my notebook was not in my bag.

I traced my steps, knowing that I had it when I got to Mario's house because I had gone into my bag for something. I called down and asked if I had left my notebook there. Mario was not interested in helping me find it but asked Shirley if they had seen it. They were as sly as a middle school child could be and lied, and I could tell when they said that they had not seen it.

In the morning, I pressed them about the notebook and they came clean, saying that Brandy took it from my bag. At school, I confronted Brandy about it and they said that they had taken it, but it was not with them and was at their house. I asked them to get it for me after school and they told me that they would get it. But the following day they did not bring it. Instead, they said that their parents wanted me to come over for dinner to discuss my notebook before giving it back.

Great. I begrudgingly agreed to go to dinner at their house to talk to their parents so I could get my notebook back. I guess they had read at least some of it and had some questions. The dinner was fine. They asked me some questions about my life and parents and how I did in school. I was a decent student at that age, but perhaps they didn't like some of the things that they had read. They had agreed to give me the notebook back, but they also never did and I am not sure why.

I didn't tell my parents about this because they weren't keen on my writing, either. I asked questions that many wouldn't think to think, let alone write down. I did have some anger at that age and likely some of the things in there would have seemed out of character. I just moved on and started over.

Then, throughout high school, I was in a program at my school that was part study hall, part computer class. We were given half credit for this class and we were asked to learn about the computers and programs that the school had in the lab. This class was mostly unsupervised. It was great.

Over the three and a half years, I spent a lot of time putting letters and poems into text files on disks that I kept in a folder at school. We were given a drawer in a filing cabinet where we held the reviews and paperwork that we did for class. I kept all of my docs on a few 3.5" floppies for the Apple II computers. I also kept any loose pages of letters, stories, and poems in there as well. It was unlocked, but in a quite out-of-the-way room, and there were several boring filing cabinets. The only people that knew where our folders were held were the students in the class.

Well, nearing the end of my senior year, my folder (and no one else's) was taken. Great, it happened again. I don't think it was Brandy this time, because they went to a different high school. I asked all of them in the class, but no one fessed up, and, being a bit older, they were better liars than middle schoolers. I never found out who took all of my writings.

Now, over 30 years later, I do not write as much as I did then. I am trying to write more. Often I will find pages in places that I forgot I had placed them, and I am getting better at keeping things together so that I can go over them to refresh my thoughts. I use a writing app now to keep my daily notes and other writings in, but I really wish I had those two sets of writings from my youth as I get older. With decades of life, the days and thoughts of my youth are hard to recall with the clarity that writings provide. Maybe they still exist somewhere and will be returned to me someday.