People say this all of the time, but how often is it true? Moments in your life that you were sure would forever be important, life shattering bits of time that were so important, you had to rush home and write about it, positive you would never live down whatever embarassment had befallen you, are long gone and possibly forgotten.

But how many of us have kept journals or diaries from those oh-so-wondrous formative years when kissing was new to us, and a glimpse of the opposite sex in any state of undreess was worth telling your best friend about?

Some people have decided that dredging out past embarassments in front of a large crowd is worth a laugh or two.

Groups in New York and elsewhere convene to relive what most would rather forget: the depths of their teenage angst. Participants get up on stage with their ragged, old diaries and are instructed to read only material embarrassing enough to make them cringe.

That's right. Taking humiliating, sometimes touching, moments from the past and telling them to a crowd is apparently quickly becoming the thing to do.

The Brooklyn event was started by a local administrative assistant, Sarah Brown, who in a momentary, drunken lapse started reading her old diaries to friends _ and discovered they had finally become more funny than painful.

The monthly cringe reading has since landed Brown a book deal and a pilot for cable television's TLC, allowing the 29-year-old to quit her day job. Similar events are happening around the country in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Milwaukee and Seattle.

Why would something as simple as reading about teen angst bring adults together? I mean, we all went through it, and why feel the need to re-hash those often terrifying moments?

"When you're a teenager, everything is the same level of intensity," Brown said. "They read about boys, or girls, or their parents, or their friends, or school, or something serious like, you know, a divorce _ but ... there's no change of tone."

While the readers try to keep it light, plenty of the material in their diaries is dark, heart-wrenching stuff.

A few of the entries read aloud are funny

The year was 1987, the boy's name was Rob, and 13-year-old Ingrid Wiese had some pressing concerns.

"He kisses weird," she wrote in her diary. "I just hope it doesn't stick and I don't end up kissing like that forever."

While some reflect parts of our childhood that may have shaped us forever

"Why? Why do you think someone could really love you?" a now-grown Ingrid Wiese reads to the crowd.

"You're fat, out of shape, covered with zits. You can just feel how your body is GOING. Your arms, your wrists, your calves. You're insecure, immature, and" _ she lowers her voice to a whisper _ "your grades reflect your intelligence."

The 33-year-old Wiese says it's enough to make her wish she could somehow give that insecure girl a hug.

"I just want to go back and tell that kid so many things, but mostly that `you're just all right the way you are,'" Wiese said after the reading.

These days, Wiese's emotions are less heightened, and she carries herself confidently as she walks from the stage.

So, how many of you out there have old bits of writing floating around? Anyone bold enough to share?

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wildswan

I'm lost

June 2006

MAY 12, 2007 11:26 AM

Damn she's got herself a sweet gig!

My brother cured me of writing journals by taunting me with information he obtained by secretly reading mine. I started to keep my stories in my head after that. I was such an odd-ball, though. I didn't really worry about the same things other kids worried about. I was concerned about the sun 'dying', and shit like that.

malkav11

Saint Paul, MN

July 2003

MAY 12, 2007 12:56 PM

I have a few journals from when I was, like, 8. But I think they mostly involved robots and so on.

wildswan

I'm lost

June 2006

MAY 12, 2007 01:00 PM

malkav11 said:
I have a few journals from when I was, like, 8. But I think they mostly involved robots and so on.

You knew robots?!

Tinyhobo

Boulder City, NV

December 2006

MAY 12, 2007 01:02 PM

wildswan said:

malkav11 said:
I have a few journals from when I was, like, 8. But I think they mostly involved robots and so on.

You knew robots?!

what..you don't?

Cairo

SUICIDEGIRL

Maryland, USA

MAY 12, 2007 01:13 PM

I was a lonely and frighteningly delusional child. I found a few of my old journals years ago, flipped through them, and had to throw them away. They were honestly scary to read. I'd really rather forget that I ever used to be like that.

malkav11

Saint Paul, MN

July 2003

MAY 12, 2007 01:21 PM

wildswan said:

malkav11 said:
I have a few journals from when I was, like, 8. But I think they mostly involved robots and so on.

You knew robots?!

Doesn't everyone know robots when they're 8? It's only later, as an adult, that the magic fades and...

*cue musical number*

The_Reverend

United Kingdom

September 2004

MAY 12, 2007 01:59 PM

Diaries are evidence. Didn't Nixon teach you people anything?

Cash

USA

OLD SKOOL

MAY 12, 2007 02:21 PM

DhD_PillowPants said:

So, how many of you out there have old bits of writing floating around? Anyone bold enough to share?

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Pfft! This story is SO 2003!