"I found your old diary."
My mom was visiting me for my birthday, sharing girl talk and gourmet food with me to ring in my 22nd year.
"Um, what?"
Apparently, I'd given my childhood diary -- with Simba emblazoned on the front, I might add -- to my mom a long time ago. Oh, the silly choices that a high school girl will make in order to have more room for make-up in an old desk drawer... My mom laughed as she recalled what she'd found when she carefully turned the pages, which were stiff with glue from movie tickets and restaurant napkin rings that I'd pasted in as mementos.
Basically, every year, I wrote one entry. "Dear Diary, I am so sorry that I haven't written in you in sooo long," I would begin. Each entry was a time capsule, a seven-, eight-, or nine-year-old's idea of a year in review. I shared about the boys I liked at the moment, the classes I'd loved, and the adventures I'd had, promising to write again soon... only to fail miserably. Reportedly, one year, I even offered to name my diary, like a teenage boy naming his first car, hoping that personification might help to guilt me into logging my secrets more often.
I promise not to name my blog. And I promise not to offer any lame excuses about why all was quiet on the western front here this summer. I'm not even going to apologize.
You see, every time a friend or family member asked me why I hadn't blogged in a while this summer, I lamented that nothing exciting had happened to me. "What would I write about? I just sit at a desk all day," I constantly insisted. This is true. I did, in fact, slouch in front of a computer screen all summer. My summer internship taught me a lot. I know now that I need windows -- or, at least, that SAD can strike in the summer if you're inside all day. I know now that my hunch about not having the stomach for hard news was right-on. Telling tough stories is important; reporting on gut-wrenching crimes has its purpose. But it's not for me. I need joy. I need interaction.
I needed to learn about new media in a less sedentary, more innovative way. And grad school has granted me that opportunity. There is life beyond my computer screen, and experiencing it doesn't have to mean choosing a new career. It just means that I have to listen to my gut. I am a great reporter. I have a weirdly fierce love for women's lifestyle magazines. And I need to hold strong to that.
Or, as Mufasa would say, I just need to remember who I am.
I cherish my loved ones more than words can express. I bake when I'm stressed; I make a mean batch of cookies. I did, in fact, do a lot of cool things this summer -- sometimes even in the vicinity of my poorly-lit office. I love a good story, and I think everyone has one. I'm a New Yorker. I'm a daughter. I'm a friend. I'm a perfectionist. I'm a writer. I live every day with the goal of learning something new, and laughing along the way. I couldn't be prouder to be part of the young Jewish community. I believe in love. I believe in the power of my pen (or my keyboard?). I believe in beauty, and music, and prayer, and peace. My name is Rachel Liane Slaff, and this is next chapter of my life.
A bird doesn't sing because it has an answer. It sings because it has a song. - Joan Anglund
