Salad Days

I still remember clearly when I first began keeping a diary—not for school, but because I wanted to. Looking back, I was a rather introverted teenager. I filled page after page with the small events of the day, the feelings that left me reeling, and the thoughts I could not bring myself to tell friends or family.

In my twenties, I grew more outgoing and learned how to laugh things off. But I still struggled to let anyone see what was really going on inside me. So instead, I wore words like a mask and poured my raw feelings and thoughts into an empty space that never answered back.

Now, standing at the beginning of my thirties, I am grateful to my teenage and twenty-something selves, who kept going by scribbling a little at a time and never quite stopping. Because of them, I found the courage to gather these stories—unpolished, but honest—and make a book of them.

Shakespeare called our “salad days” the years when we are still green in judgment. My own, which once seemed as though they would stay green forever, are drawing to a close. They were awkward and painful and foolish, but there was something clear and unguarded about them—a freshness that life does not let us keep for long. I leaned on words to get me through those raw years. These words still embarrass me, but I wanted them to catch at least a little light.

Perhaps laying myself bare will not become easy. But if those who read this would let their eyes linger gently over these fragile words of mine, just once, I think I could carry on a little more bravely.

A shy greeting, then, to your salad days and mine.