i know they’re her private journals, and shouldn’t necessarily be used as a rule book of any sort to live by; but being 19 myself, i thought i could gain knowledge from a girl who i assumed would most definitely have more common sense than i do.
i’m almost 200 pages in and am actually growing quickly tired of trying to track the different dates and men and boys. maybe the absence of her father plays a big part in this, but whatever enchantment sylvia has worked up in me is quickly made dull by the beginning of her next entry, which is a complete 180 from the last, in the span of a day (i love him, never mind i hate him, and there’s this other guy).
one day she’s accepted in mademoiselle, eating caviar, drinking champagne staying out late and the next (for no apparent reason) she’s dejected, hopeless. and she says it herself, she has everything and more. and i’m unfortunately not seeing it as “no matter how much you have you’re still empty”, rather than as “this girl has absolutely zero foresight”.
these journals have served only to paint sylvia as an extremely ungrateful person, and unfortunately i’ve gained no insight or found any knowledge to superimpose onto my own life (other than observe how childish and unappreciative one of your favorite authors realistically is)
OP seems to completely ignore her age at the time of writing which is just wild to me. Why is she expected to be more mature and moral? As you said, insights come from living and gaining experience. When I was in my teens and 20s, my bipolar was out of control. I was not someone to look up to. I did dangerous things and had a lot of sexual partners in questionable situations. I was also just young and young people can be jerks just like anyone else. If someone published my diary they would see a severely messed up person. I’m not her anymore, though, and I’ve learned to view myself and others with grace and understanding. Part of that was my experiences and part of it was reading about others.