The Princess Diarist

by Carrie Fisher

Kidding yourself doesn’t require that you have a sense of humor. But a sense of humor comes in handy for almost everything else. Especially the darker things,

I had never been Princess Leia before and now I would be her forever. I would never not be Princess Leia. I had no idea how profoundly true that was and how long forever was.

(The crew was mostly men. That’s how it was and that’s pretty much how it still is. It’s a man’s world and show business is a man’s meal, with women generously sprinkled through it like overqualified spice.)

I AM SOMEONE who wants very much to be popular. I don’t just want you to like me, I want to be one of the most joy-inducing human beings that you’ve ever encountered. I want to explode on your night sky like fireworks at midnight on New Year’s Eve in Hong Kong.

Because what can you do with people that like you, except, of course, inevitably disappoint them?

I CONFIDE IN everyone. I have no restricted private self, reserved specifically for certain trusted special people.

It’s not nice being inside my head. It’s a nice place to visit but I don’t want to live in here. It’s too crowded; too many traps and pitfalls. I’m tired of it. The same old person, day in and day out.

I tried to neaten my mind, file everything away into tidy little thoughts, but it only got more and more cluttered. My mind has a mind of its own.

Do not let what you think they think of you make you stop and question everything you are.

I WOULD LIKE to not be able to hear myself think. I constantly hear my mind chattering and jabbering away up there all by itself. I wish it would give me a fucking break.

I DO NOT want to take part in my life. It can just go on without me; I’m not giving it any help. I don’t want to see it, I don’t want to talk to it, I don’t want it anywhere near me. It takes too much energy. I refuse to be a part of it. If you have a life, even if you get used to it ruining your sleep, spoiling your fun, requiring your somewhat undivided attention, what overwhelming relief one must feel when it finally skips town.

TRYING RELENTLESSLY TO make you love me, but I don’t want the love—I quite prefer the quest for it. The challenge. I am always disappointed with someone who loves me—how perfect can he be if he can’t see through me?

I WISH I could go away somewhere but the only problem with that is that I’d have to go, too.