Ride Or Diaries

On January 7th of this year I evacuated Altadena with my housemates in the middle of the night taking only what I absolutely needed—my passport, important documents, a change of clothes and six or seven boxes of 40 years of diaries. 

Journaling was something I did instinctually from a young age. A mostly daily ritual that became a necessary way for me to process life. Releasing all the big emotions I had onto a page that I could hold in my hands made them feel more manageable. I could breathe after I wrote because the chaos felt organized. Documenting my big life events with pen and paper, typewriter or laptop meant at any point I’d be able to look back and see if how I remembered something was how it actually happened. I could use it as a tool to measure my spiritual growth. I also had this gut feeling my diaries might sound really funny one day and I wasn’t wrong. I still sometimes get requests to read my 6th grade diary on stage and when I used to host parties a lot back in the day my old diaries were often the entertainment.

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December 25th, 1986 (6th grade)

Dear Diary, 

Christmas was great. I got everything I wanted. Although this year it wasn’t about gifts. It was about Christ’s birth. But I still loved my gifts!!!

In grade school through most of high school, I usually started my entries with Dear Diary and wrote as if I was letting a part of myself that was older and wiser know exactly what was going on in my world. My ride or diary. Without going to confession I could feel my sins melt away with every admission. I could work shit out with myself without feeling by myself. In fact, writing to “Diary” made me feel less alone. 

May 9, 1992 (11th grade)

Dear Diary,

Very bad news. My second cousin Georgie died. He was only 16, my age. He drowned fishing with friends on Staten Island. There was a storm. I keep thinking of dancing with him at Maureen’s wedding. 16–dead. It just doesn’t make sense. I have to go to the wake tonight. I’ll never forget him. I’m going to keep my mind off it for now. I’m going to take a shower. Talk to you later!

The house in Altadena I lived in did not burn down, but I haven’t been back since the night of January 7th because of smoke damage. I haven’t seen any of my belongings yet because the insurance company still had all our stuff in a warehouse for remediation and they’ve only just started sending it back. I’ve been reading old journals now more than ever because they’re my only possessions! In the midst of so much loss, reading and remembering cherished people and events has been healing. I especially love when I read something that at one time felt life-changing, earth-shattering or just infuriating and today it’s hilarious. Reassurance that this too shall pass.

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June 27, 1986 (6th grade)

Dear Diary,

Today we went to a pool party at Tommy’s house. It was so fun! The boys were giving me so much attention until BIG TIT JOANN showed up! 

My ritual of keeping a journal became sporadic once I moved to Los Angeles at the age of 20. I do have volumes of audition journals from my twenties when I first started acting professionally. I wrote one-person shows, which is like performing parts of your diary, but the daily habit of writing down my day faded in adulthood. Was I too busy adulting? Was I not as capable of differentiating one day from another because of the year-round California sunshine? I know I tried to write during the pandemic, but my entries always felt short and uneventful. 

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January 7th, 2022 

Wow! Another exciting day filled with so many examples of me fulfilling my potential and giving to the world. NOT!

Before the fires I put years worth of diaries in chronological order (pictured) which gave me a feeling of completion. Especially since I haven’t completed all the things I set out to, in my youth. At 50 I’m starting over. The good news is I don’t believe in completion anymore. I’d much rather see all things as an eternal work in progress.  

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August 2, 2000

My tarot card reader at Bodhi Tree told me three weeks ago that I was headed for an extremely creative cycle where great success awaits. In three years I could die feeling my life was “perfect.” 

As I watched Altadena burn to the ground on a TV at a Marriot in Burbank, I felt like I was watching my life in L.A burn down. I had recovered from so many setbacks in the three decades spent in L.A, but this one–I wasn’t sure I had the energy to create an exciting new chapter. 

I realized permanently living at The Marriot would become expensive and I went to stay on a friend’s couch.  She had a friend come over for dinner one night—an old flame from her college days who she remained friends with—and he and I stayed up talking until 5 in the morning. We laughed, we sang, we did dramatic readings of some of my journals because they were right there in the living room with me. Our sense of humor was so similar and I learned that he too had boxes and boxes of journals from his youth. I was leaving for New Jersey to hang out at my Mom’s until further notice of…anything. We exchanged numbers to keep in touch. 

For a month we talked 3 to 4 hours a night and, yep, fell in love over FaceTime! Kind of a mix of old fashioned and modern love if you ask me. He bought me a ticket back to California to where he lived on the Central Coast, three hours from Los Angeles, and I’ve been here 7 months now. We’ve gotten a chance to do some dramatic readings of his journals and we’ve committed to writing daily again. We have talked about getting a storage shed in the yard for our growing collection of personal memoirs. I want to document all the good days I’ve had and the ones to come. If I live a really long life and one day I start to forget all the things I did and felt and loved, I hope I still like to read. I hope my diaries are so good I can’t put them down.

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Kristina Hayes is an accomplished Actress, Improviser and creator of Waltz Through Life, specializing in social dancing for Senior Citizens and Memory Care. Despite the rumor that there is no theater in LA, she has performed on many stages around town with award winning theater companies, The Next Arena, West Coast Ensemble, Theater Neo, The Lost Studio and was a regular improviser at the famed Improv Olympic theater in Hollywood. She also uses her crockpot to make soup all year round. When Kristina’s not blinding herself with the big lights of Hollywood, she’s running her own company Waltz Through Life, specializing in Ballroom dance instruction and dance therapy for seniors, including those suffering from dementia. She teaches acting and improv workshops to kids and adults. She also has a dog. She also loves sunsets and feeling the rain hit her really hard in the face.