"There is so much hurt in this game of searching for a mate, of testing, trying.
And you realize suddenly that you forgot it was a game, and turn away in tears”. Sylvia Plath
"Boyfriends no! Friends". Mom.
What do Sylvia Plath, Susan Sontag, Lisa Simpson, Lizzie McGuire
and Miki from the Marmalade Boy have in common?
They all wrote in a diary.
I've been back for a visit.
I grew up here until I was 15 years old and my mother and brother still live here.
Coming back is always opening a trunk of memories
(although many of them were thrown away by my mother).
This was what I read:
Since there's a girls' school near her school...
Will he have found another more beautiful girlfriend?
With this teddy I masturbated for the first time.
This was what I listened.
And this was what I wrote.
This is Raquel's NOT SO secret diary
“March 12, 2004.
I didn't know there were so many girls in love with Pablo, haha.
I only knew that Tamara and Ainhoa were in love with him,
but one day I discovered that Patri were in love with him.
And today, at school, I discovered that Adriana and Marta were also in love with him.
I mean, there are 5 girls in love with Pablo!
It's very heavy.
Pablo seems handsome to me but not for me to like him
and of course I don't like him.
See you soon, diary.
Me and Isi, my lovely brother.
"June 9, 2004
Hello Raquel! How are you?
I hope you don't mind I write in the diary".
Wait, wait...
Wait a minute.
Isi: You will have to pay me. Raquel: Stupid.
Isi: You will have to pay me 100 € for the participation.
"Hello Raquel! How are you?
I hope you don't mind I write in your diary.
I wanted to take mine but I was wrong and took this one!
Well, I see that you say that you don't like your Arturo or Samuel, right?
Tomorrow, when I take the computer to the store,
I will see if I can buy the Minami (a magazine).
The second volume of 'Tokyo Juliet' has already come out,
but I don't think I'm going to buy it.
Well, I stop writing now.
You will tell me what grades you got in the exams.
Ciao!"
"Isi, that you know that I kill you".
My brother had a lot of influence on my childhood.
I grew up with his tastes:
manga, anime, Britney Spears, Buffy the Vampire Slayer...
We even had the same diary.
Although that does not justify that he had permission to invade mine.
My parents met working in a hotel.
She's Hortensia.
She is from La Mancha.
He is Isicio.
Andalusian.
Both left their families behind as teenagers
to find work in the Benidorm hospitality industry.
They met and formed my family.
I am the youngest of two brothers.
My mother always told me that I was not wanted,
that my brother was enough.
Also that she decided to name me with the same name of a perfum.
Maybe I invented this memory.
"September 26, 2004
In the afternoon I went with my mom and grandparents
for a walk along the beach to Las Gaviotas restaurant.
Before the restaurant my mother has gone to church.
The grandparents and I do not.
Mom has started to get a wound because of the new shoes.
When we came back Isi was there,
he came from being with dad in
Playas de Orihuela working at the hotel.
He returned the 95 € he owed me
'He stoled it from my first communion money'.
I'm glad he came.
See you tomorrow, dear diary”.
Ceremony date: December 10, 1983
“September 26, 2004.
Hello again, diary.
NEWS: Pili, who goes to la Zenia on weekends,
she is dad's girlfriend.
They are lying to me and I don't like that".
“October 2, 2004.
Hello, diary.
Actually today would be day three,
but I am writing as if it were yesterday to tell what happened to me.
I saw cartoons on TV and in the afternoon we went to Zara.
Mom bought a jacket for her and tights for me.
I got angry because I couldn't buy anything.
We went to the cheap store
and I bought some earrings in the shape of stars with glitter.
I saw my best friend Raquel,
who went to see the Moors and Christians, but we went home.
I put on my pajamas and Isi asked mom
why she was bitter and she said it was because I insulted her.
Oh, I felt very bad and I wanted to apologize to her,
but she told me to shut up”.
The house is even quieter without her.
Although even when she was there she already was,
because she kept her words to herself.
If she didn't speak for a long time,
the silence was broken, usually with insane ideas.
My mother's mind has been gradually getting worse since she separated from my father.
“FOR ARTHUR
You are like a sunbeam fallen from the universe to Earth.
You are like an arrow of love stuck in my heart.
You are like a perfumed rose approaching me.
You are like my life, that I can never separate from you”.
"November 30, 2016
And I get excited, and I'm dying to meet him and fuck,
because the last time we saw each other
he turned me on a lot and I still remember that day and I get horny".
"December 23, 2016.
I smell rotten again.
I have a wound on the inside of my right lip.
Last night it bled suddenly and I freaked out.
It is the mark that Rubén left me,
on the third date,
at his house.
I like him even though he didn't cum,
despite being hurt.
But when I saw it last night I felt mutilated by him.
When I suddenly stop thinking about something
I remember my wound on my inner lip and I get chills,
as if I had a deformation typical of a Cronenberg movie”.
“December 29, 2004.
"Hello, diary.
On the afternoon of the 27th I went to the movies with Dad
to see 'Lemony Snicket's A Series Of Unfortunate Events'.
Now I have the whim that I like Liam Aiken.
I like Liam Aiken but later
I will cross out this sentence because I will not like him".
“January 23, 2005
I've had a crush on Liam Aiken for almost a month.
He is very very handsome,
I sent him a letter.
I'm sure he won't answer me because
he has many more letters coming to him".
This letter is from a year later.
When I saw 'The Chronicles of Narnia' I fell in love with another actor,
Skandar Keyes,
and then I did receive an answer.
With much love for the person I love most in my life, ISICIO. Signed, Hortensia
My mother sent these photos to my father while he was in the military.
I see myself reflected in it when
I find photos that I took of myself,
although in this case, the recipient was myself.
I also feel reflected in her when
I find love letters that I used to receive.
These belong to my second romantic relationship,
a painful relationship of dependency and manipulation.
It is strange but revealing to see
that sudden surrender to someone in just a few months,
clearly reflected in the headers and goodbyes of his letters.
After my father's infidelity,
mom took on the role of a suffering mother.
She was closing in on herself and I,
in full preadolescence,
I felt very distanced from her.
She ended up carrying the weight of someone else's sin
and sacrificed her happiness as if it were a religious prophecy.
Somehow I learned this behavior and reflected it in my relationships.
"June 4, 2017.
Is every thing I'm wrong about putting the relationship at risk?
Starting a while ago I collapse at every mistake.
He calls me dramatic,
but he is too.
Not only the error in the bus schedule,
now I have done wrong in not telling him
that he has to come back next week to sign his payroll.
Is that why I'm responsible for everything?
Am I to blame for everything?
He exaggerates too much,
I feel like he makes me guilty of everything.
That's not fair.
That's how a fucking job he got thanks to me works.
I don't feel like doing anything,
it's hard for me to hope for anything.
Even he does not tell me,
I feel like he thinks I'm worthless".
Yes,
this boy is the same as the one of the letters.
Everything bad was my responsibility
and everything good was his merit.
He made me doubt about myself,
among many other things.
It took me a while to realize that he abused me psychologically.
To top it off, he wrote invasive notes in my books.
Around the time I started my next relationship,
I realized that there were very similar patterns between couples.
"Thursday, April 2, 2020
I think that it was very clear for my part,
from the beginning
how unfunny it was for me that he constantly criticized
every movie or series I put on TV,
without even knowing what it was about.
It tires me that he underestimates my tastes in this way,
it tires me that he underestimates the things that characterize me,
it tires me that he underestimates my fragility,
whose contempt makes my fragility increase.
I feel less myself
and more another person who is gradually
submitting to the tastes and comforts of another person".
I'm in Benidorm,
it is March 2022,
my mother has recently been admitted to the hospital,
they say it is schizophrenia,
it makes sense,
my brother has suffered from it since he was 16.
Today Isi and I have gone down to the promenade
and we have taken this photo for her.
I'd like to print it out and take it to the hospital.
“June 2, 2005
I have a secret,
but I'm afraid to write it here and then my brother will read it,
so I'm not going to write it,
although I'll try.
Speaking of boys,
since now, I have fallen in love with many boys.
Less than twenty, but more than ten.
You know that I am 11 to 12 years old".
“June 4, 2005.
I am writing now while my brother sleeps
so he doesn't know what I am writing.
The secret is that…
I like Luis Alberto and I don't want to admit it”.
“Monday, September 17, 2018.
I read this diary laughing,
feeling ashamed,
it's as if it were a teenage diary and, in the end,
actually end up writing about sentimental conflicts.
Men.
Buuuuuuuuu”
I AM WHAT MATTER, NONE OF THESE STUPID MEN QUOTED HERE IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN MYSELF
But one is bigger than the other, right?
This is bigger.
Yes, the same.
I have a larger one on this foot.
Look.
Just like grandpa.
the grandfather had.
Grandma didn't.
Yes, this is the one I have the largest.
The same as you.
Grandpa had too.
Did he also have?
On this foot?
In both.
My mother inherited her father's bunions
and her mother's shy nipples.
I have inherited both things from her.
Do you go for a walk?
It's today. Not yesterday.
Today it's time and tomorrow at home.
Every other day.
To the sea.
But the pill must be taken every night,
not every other day.
Do you know, mom?
Well...
April 2022.
My mother left the hospital after two weeks,
I didn't have time to give her our photo,
but I was able to give it to my brother.
He had a relapse,
but soon returned home.
My mother's return home came with a lot of pressure and a lot of stress,
since we were afraid that she was not fully aware
that she had to take medication for life.
I guess, as you get older,
it's even harder to stop making the same mistakes.
Meanwhile,
Little by little I am learning not to repeat them.
Juny 2022.
My brother tells me that mom has been taking her medication for several nights.
It is a very great joy,
so much so that it makes me feel some hope.
We have gone down to the beach,
I have tried to take a photo of them,
this has come out.
By the way,
in the end I took literally my mother's phrase,
“not boyfriends, friends”,
and I fell in love with my best friend.
This is Raquel's secret diary.
It's over now, so...
You don't have anything else to read!
This is Raquel's notso secret diary