Hi. I'm Caitlin. I'm sixteen, a junior in high school, a clarinet player, a someday writer, and as of July 14th, somebody's aunt. I've kept this journal since September 1997, the week Princess Diana died, when I was fourteen and wrote everything in capital letters. In August I finally split it up into pages, because the whole thing took about five minutes to load on our modem. The old stuff is below. Be nice to fourteen-year-old me. She tried.

I changed the colors again for junior year. Katie says it looks like a dentist's office. My mom works in a dentist's office. So, thanks, Katie.

If you know me from school: hi. Please pretend you don't. It's better for everybody.

jump to: September · August · July

Sunday, September 26, 1999

Last night was the harvest moon. Around eight, Jen and I took Hailey out on the driveway wrapped up like a burrito, because Jen read somewhere that babies should see the moon, which I'm pretty sure she made up. It was huge and orange and sitting right on top of the neighbors' garage. Hailey looked at it for about three seconds and then looked at Jen's earring instead. Which is fair. The earring was closer.

Today was a lazy Sunday. Dad watched the golf, the U.S. against Europe, with Hailey asleep on his chest. The U.S. had been losing all weekend, and today they came back and won, and Dad went "OH!" and put his fist in the air, and Hailey didn't even wake up. She just rode it. Mom said that's the loudest he's been since the soccer.

Tonight I read this whole journal from the beginning, all the way back to the notebook entries from fall 1997. I was SO loud. Everything was the best thing or the worst thing, and every other word was in capitals. Freshman me swore she would never be like Jen at seventeen. I'm sixteen and five months and I haven't broken curfew once, but to be fair, nobody has ever invited me anywhere that goes past 11:30. So we'll see.

What got me is that she didn't know anything that was coming. Katie leaving. Christmas. Hailey. She was just so excited about a table. I kind of want to reach back and tell her it's going to be OK. I don't actually know if it is. I'd tell her anyway.

PSAT in October. Chemistry quiz Tuesday. Jeremy called at seven to "ask about the chemistry homework," and he isn't even in my chemistry class.

Goodnight.

Thursday, September 23, 1999

In English we had to write a poem about an object in our house. Everybody picked their TV or their bed. I picked a wall, specifically the one between my room and Hailey's. My teacher wrote "Lovely. Watch your line breaks." I don't know what's wrong with my line breaks. I like my line breaks. Here it is anyway.

The Wall

The wall between my room and hers
is thin as a library card.
At two in the morning I learn her whole language:
the hiccup, the creak, the siren going up,
and then the little sigh that means
somebody's here.

My sister's feet on the cold floor.
The rocking chair's one bad squeak.
A song with no words in it,
the same four notes our mother hummed to us,
and I didn't know I knew them
until tonight, when I hummed them back
through the plaster,
quieter,
so only the wall could hear.

Friends is back tonight, the new season, so I'm going downstairs to watch it with Jen, who has waited all summer for this and will be asleep in ten minutes. I'll tell her what happened tomorrow. I always do.

Saturday, September 18, 1999

So. Jeremy.

Last night was an away game, which means the band bus, which is apparently where everything important in my life happens. On the way home he sat WITH me. Not behind me. In the actual seat. The whole trumpet section went "ooooooh" from the back until our director turned around and gave them the look.

It was dark and loud and we talked about nothing: the PSAT, his little brother, whether our fight song is in a bad key (he says yes; I say he's a trumpet player, so what does he know). Then the bus went over the railroad tracks and bounced really hard, and he grabbed my hand, like for balance, and then he just didn't let go. For maybe a whole minute. Then he did, and we both looked out opposite windows like nothing happened.

Something happened.

Today he called and asked if I wanted to go to Amy's bonfire next Saturday, "you know, like, go, together," and then talked about valve oil for five minutes like he hadn't said anything.

So I think we're going out? Nobody has said the words. I don't know who is supposed to say the words. I asked Jen and she laughed so hard she woke Hailey up.

Katie says, in all capitals, that it COUNTS.

Wednesday, September 8, 1999

Junior year, day two.

I figured out today that juniors are the middle of the sandwich: not the new ones and not the ones leaving, just the part that holds everything together. I made that up in fourth hour and thought it was very deep. Amy said it was "very deli."

The counselor came to homeroom with a stack of PSAT practice booklets. It's in October. Everybody acted like it was no big deal, and then everybody took one.

The best part of the day was in the hall between second and third hour. The boy from English last year, the quiet one I sat with at lunch after Colorado, walked past me and said "Hey, Caitlin," and kept going. He's taller. New jacket (still black). He's never said my name before. I don't know why that got me, but it did. I stood there by the drinking fountain like an idiot until the bell rang.

Also, I drove myself to school. In a car. By myself. Jen and I share the Tempo now, which means I get it in the daytime and she gets it at night for work, and we leave each other notes on the dashboard about the gas.

Tuesday, August 31, 1999

Katie has been back in school for three weeks already, because in Arizona school starts in August, when it's still 108 degrees, which she says is a human rights violation. She e-mailed tonight and said I could put some of it on here. (Her exact words: "put ALL of it, I'm hilarious.")

CAIT!!!!! I got my license too!!! my mom says I drive like a grandma but in a GOOD way. it's still 108 here. tell Hailey her Aunt Katie loves her even tho we have never met. did Jeremy say anything yet. SAY SOMETHING TO JEREMY. also I'M COMING AT THANKSGIVING!!! my dad said yes!!! we can see if our necklace still fits together. love, BE FRI

She still signs it that way. I still have ST ENDS in my jewelry box.

We haven't seen each other in fourteen months. I'm scared she'll be different. I'm scared I'll be different. I'm scared we'll be exactly the same and it won't matter anymore, somehow. Mostly, though, I'm just really, really excited. I'm going to clean my half of the room. (Jen: "Your half of the room is not the problem.")

Saturday, August 21, 1999

I HAVE MY DRIVER'S LICENSE.

Sorry. Old habits. I have my driver's license.

I passed the road test yesterday, second try. The first try was in June, when I bumped the cone parallel parking and the examiner wrote something on her clipboard in a very quiet way that I could hear from across the car. This time I went back and forth about nine times, but I did not touch the cone. My picture looks like I've been arrested for something.

Today was the first time I ever drove alone. Jen forgot her lunch for work, and Mom said, "Why don't you run it over to her?" like it was nothing, like she wasn't handing me the keys to her car and my whole entire life.

I backed out of the driveway so slowly the neighbor waved at me twice. And then it was just me. No Dad saying "Easy." No Mom holding on to the handle over the door. Just me and the radio, and "Genie in a Bottle" came on, which is Hailey's song (see July), and I sang it loud with the window down at exactly the speed limit.

Jen came out to the parking lot in her apron and took the bag and said, "Look at you." That's all. Then she went back in.

I took the long way home. Twice.

Friday, August 13, 1999

Friday the 13th. Nothing bad happened. Here is a regular Friday night at our house now, as of 9 p.m.:

Jen's at work. Mom's asleep in the recliner with Hailey asleep on her. Dad's in the garage (I think he's making a toy box now; he won't say). And I'm on the computer, and nobody is yelling about the phone line, because everybody who used to call here is too tired to call.

Jen is nineteen. She works at the grocery store, cashier, evenings, four or five nights a week, and she comes home with her feet hurting and her hair smelling like the deli. She gives Hailey a bath every single night no matter how tired she is. I've watched her. She talks the whole time, like the announcer at a game: "And here comes the washcloth, folks, she's going for the ears."

The other night the baby was up, so everybody was up, and Jen and I ended up at the kitchen table at 3 a.m. eating cereal out of the box. Out of nowhere she said, "Go to college, Cait. Go far. Actually go." I said I would. She said "Promise," and I did.

She's the bravest person I know. I would never say that to her. She'd make fun of me for a year.

Tuesday, July 27, 1999

Things nobody tells you about having a baby in the house:

1. They are so LOUD. Something that small should not be that loud.
2. The wall between my room and the nursery is apparently made of Kleenex.
3. The top of their head smells good. I thought that was just something people said. It's real.
4. They make everybody nicer. There hasn't been one fight since Hailey came home. Dad talks to her in actual sentences. On Sunday he explained lumber grades to her. She was riveted.

Last night she cried from one until almost three. Jen had been up the whole night before, too, and she looked so wrecked that I said, "Give her to me and go to sleep." I walked Hailey up and down the hall. The only song in my head was "Genie in a Bottle," because it's on the radio every five minutes, so I sang it to her, slow, like a lullaby. She stopped crying. She looked up at me with her big serious face, and then she fell asleep on my shoulder.

My niece's favorite song is "Genie in a Bottle." I'm not telling anybody. Except all of you.

The weekend before last, Mom watched the news about John F. Kennedy Jr.'s plane for two days straight with Hailey asleep on her. It made me think of the morning we watched Princess Diana's funeral. Mom cries at the news. I think I'm going to be like that too.

P.S. This summer I took Leo down off the closet door to hang up the diaper bag. I didn't feel anything. Jen said, "Rest in peace, husband."

Thursday, July 15, 1999

She's here.

Hailey Marie. Born yesterday, Wednesday, July 14, 1999, at 4:52 in the afternoon, seven pounds three ounces, six days early, with a whole lot of dark hair that sticks straight up like she's surprised about something.

Mom went in with Jen. Dad and I sat in the waiting room most of the day. He read the same fishing magazine three times. He bought me a Snickers and a Coke from the machines and didn't eat anything himself. At one point he said, "You doing OK?" and I said, "Yeah. You?" and he said, "Yep." That was the whole conversation, and it was a good one.

Then Mom came out crying and smiling at the same time and said, "It's a girl," and Dad stood up so fast his magazine fell on the floor.

I held her. She weighs nothing. She has Jen's chin and a squished-up face like a tiny grumpy grandpa, and she opened one eye and looked at me like she was deciding about me.

I'm an aunt. I'm sixteen. Aunt Caitlin. I keep saying it out loud to see if it sounds real. It doesn't yet.

Jen was so tired she could barely talk, but when I came in she said, "Did you see her? Cait, did you see her?" like I might have missed it.

Saturday, July 10, 1999

The Women's World Cup final was today, the U.S. against China at the Rose Bowl, and I watched the whole thing with Dad.

This is not something we do. Dad and I don't really do things. Since Christmas especially, he's been in the garage and I've been in my room, and we pass each other in the kitchen like two people waiting for the same bus.

But I was in the den when it started, and he came in and sat down in his chair, and I didn't leave, and he didn't leave. It was 0 to 0. Then it was overtime, and still 0 to 0, and by then we were both on the edges of our seats and he was saying "Come on. Come on," under his breath.

It went to penalty kicks. Our goalie, Briana Scurry, dove and stopped one of China's, and Dad smacked the arm of his chair so hard the remote flew off. Then Brandi Chastain kicked the last one in and we won, and Dad and I both stood up and yelled, and he held up his hand and I high-fived him. Then he patted my shoulder twice, sat back down, and said, "Well. How about that."

Jen, who is due in ten days and slept on the couch through the ENTIRE thing, sat up and said, "What? What happened?" and we both said "WE WON" at the same time.

It's the first thing just Dad and me have done together in months. I'm writing it down so I remember it exactly.

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