Wow, this feels… kinda weird.

Do you know I dragged my feet for almost two weeks before I finally gave in and bought this thing? I’m not sure what made it so hard this time. I mean, I already had to buy a new journal a few weeks after my 18th birthday, and then again after my 20th. No big surprise that I’d have to do it again after my 22nd.

It just feels like I’m… letting go, or something. That’s so silly, isn’t it? All that fuss for nothing but some scribbles of ink on some blue lines. But I guess to me, they’re more than that. They’re memories. Feelings. A snapshot of moments in my life I’ll never get to live again. It feels weird to just tuck them away on a shelf or pack them up in a box and forget about them.

But I guess that’s what great-grandpa did. When bis-vovó passed away last year, we all spent a weekend cleaning out their cottage, and we found this big box with dozens of journals in it. Literally dozens. We sat down together and read through some of them. It was so surreal… Like I could almost hear the sound of his voice in every page. It felt like we had a piece of him back again.

It made me wonder whether he ever went back and re-read his old journals. Did he ever revisit his past in those pages? Or did he tuck them away and never think of them again? Did he have that feeling of loss that I do, when the time came to start all over again?

I asked Oma if it was ever hard for her to move on to a new journal. Did she “miss” the old ones? She just laughed. “I try to think of it as a new beginning.” She told me. “A fresh start.”

I guess that’s a good way to think of it, isn’t it? You could say it’s kinda fitting that I’m starting this new journal now… I mean, I’m about to leave for my last year of university. That’s like a new chapter, isn’t it?

I really want to make this year count. I feel like there’s so much I still haven’t gotten to do. Crash a party. Pull an all-nighter (I’ve come so damn close!). Find a boyfriend…

Okay, I almost can’t believe I wrote that last one. But it’s true! I just can’t believe I’ve still never had a real boyfriend after all this time. I mean, I’ve gone on plenty of first dates, and even some second and third dates too (this is where those old journal entries would definitely come in handy), but most of those guys were total assholes… Or really weird… Or just… not right for me.

Nothing ever really worked out.

I guess it’s hard not to feel like maybe there’s something wrong with me.

I know I shouldn’t get so worked up about it. But I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately, ever since what happened with Gus. He just broke up with his girlfriend last weekend. She was his first girlfriend ever. They were only together for a couple of months, but they’d been friends for years before that, and this breakup has really messed him up. He’s not himself anymore.

We’ve all been telling him not to worry, and that things will get better soon… But I can’t help wondering whether it really will. I mean, who knows where he’ll end up a few years from now.

Will he be like Clara and Florian? Head-over-heels in love and still going strong after four years together?

Or like Luc? Completely given up on relationships and singlehandedly screwing his way through half the girls in Windenburg?

Or like me? 22, a virgin, and lonely as hell?

My poor little Bruder. I hope it’s anything but the third option.