On May 22nd, 1982, I received my first diary as a present for my 13th birthday. It had a chubby, smiling raccoon on it’s cover wearing a happy, bright yellow T-shirt that said "Wild 'N Crazy" in multi-colored letters. It was so empowering to be 13 and to own something with a lock and key. That key was to be hidden in my shiny red "lock box" safe that I got for Christmas the year before. That lock box was also the home of the copy of the letter I wrote to the ABC Network in Los Angeles in the previous year. I guess if we looked in the history books, my obsession with fame and power started in utero. My ear must have been up to my Mom's belly at all times, struggling to hear anything. “Give me something in here!”
On that same monumental day of glory in 1982 when I entered my teenage years, I got my first period. Yes, that is correct. "Happy Birthday Jane! xoxo Mother Nature". Oh Mother Nature, you are a quirky one.
1982 was a year of change (mostly with my hair, a result of the onset of puberty) and a year of awakening and exposure. My safe, sheltered bubble where I resided for my entire life was being poked at with a proverbial pin. After my first year of all-girls catholic school, boys were not an every day distraction and I wasn't interested in what the nuns (Sister Eileen most of all) were teaching. Don't let the smile fool you.
As I entered my teen years, I turned to MTV, movies and music as my escape. Conversations at the dinner table about my fathers work bored me to tears. Politics were not my cup of tea at 13. When he told me that he and my mother were to spend a weekend in Washington DC as guests in the White House, I was more interested in what this man really did for a living. Who is this guy I call Dad?
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