Seventeen Years to Earth

Perry Lin
1998-10-02

8
23 min

For 17 years, from the age of about six or seven, Kathy Chu keeps a diary. It's a complete fiction, denying disappointments (when her older sister doesn't want to spend time with her, Kathy invents and records a happy encounter) and rejections (she's teased for being Asian, but she writes about what fun she had with friends). Her hopes to be a writer compound the irony of her journal's disconnection. In college and after graduation, one of her closest friends is Kirby, who is also Asian. She denies any romantic attraction, and when they do become lovers, it's her diary that brings a crisis to their relationship and to her identify. Kathy falls back to earth.