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[Tell yourself everything is all right 'cause it already is]
I am just so tired. I think that's it. I think I've pinpointed the thing that is making me feel this way. I'm hopeless and depressed and teetering on the edge of some sort of cliff that defies me. I have no idea why I'm falling and what I'm so fucked up for. And so I decided, yes, you're just tired.
But that's not satisfying at all. It leaves me with the even more depressing idea that I actually timed my hideous falling apart for spring break. This suggests that a.) even my body is trained to fall apart on cue and there is no such thing as letting go for me or b.) my subconcious waited because it didn't want to interfere with my hectic schedule. Both equally disgusting.
There is another reason lurking in the shadows, but I hate it. My birthday is coming, this Friday in fact, and I have been looking forward to it with the same gusto as I do every year because it is the one day that I can call "mine." On this day of days I throw guilt out the window and am an absolute tyrant about attention. And it's fun. But this lurking reason taints my birthday a little, and reminds me just how childish I am, and lets another pebble slip over the edge of this bottomless pit that I can't see.
I'm about to be 20.
This is exciting, and interesting and new. And I am still 19 so I can be just as childish as I want still and say—I don't want to leave my teens behind. Twenty years. "Two decades of crazy."
But then I remind myself that the rest of my world has just been falling down around me for no reason and for once I have been reacting in kind. Frankly, I'm tired of bucking up. I don't know what it feels like to relax, really.
And there's something else, also very upsetting. I am just egotistical enough to claim right here, right now—I don't think the people who "love" me really "like" me very much. How ridiculous can I get, right? No one's forcing you to read. You can leave and I'll continue to this blank stage made of 0's and 1's. Yawning. Cavernous.
If I'm not being funny, no one knows what to do with me. If I'm not making them laugh, my best friends will leave me alone, claiming that's what they thought I wanted. Which is even more hurtful because it means they don't know me at all. They'll comfort one another through every kind of crisis and then one night when I lose all my marbles and go running across Lake Shore Drive at 4 in the morning because I'm thinking that's it that's all, no one cares so I don't either—no one is there for me. It's a whole different kind of void. And it thunders and lightnings me back to
Last summer, when I got my first lesson in "No one really cares." And no, I'll never forget it now. I was on my way, I can tell you that much. It's not as if I'll burn all my recent journal entries claiming how I'm over it and finally feel like friendship is OK again. And I do. And none of them will ever know the difference. Because I thought it was just her, and then I thought it was a one time mistake. And everyone gets second chances. But I never even got my first chance to have a bad day. After all, who will pour the wine and make them laugh and make them feel better about themselves? Because when I'm up, man am I up. I appreciate it all, to the point I want to cry at how happy I can get. But it's too fucking much to carry. And I think I broke.
So that's it. I've thrown myself a neat little pity party, and all I'll get for it is feeling lousy later. But wait, now, shit, as long as I'm going to take the guilt for this later I may as well purge it all! I'm tired of feeling ugly! I'm tired of fake friends! I'm tired of feeling bad for mistakes I didn't make! I'm tired of work! I'm tired of worry and guilt! Hallelujah! I'm cleansing myself so no one else has to. It's all a very tidy lesson, isn't it?
I realize how ridiculous I am, so please, don't tell me. I am perfectly aware that this is one of those weeks, and that every stupid feeling will pass. I'm used to getting over things quickly, I'm not going to change now, even if I want to. Don't worry now. My melodrama has reached its much awaited end.
Alicia will be back next week, she's just on vacation. Spring Break 2004, baby! She'll regret ever saying any of this. She'll apologize, probably 15 or 20 times to everyone. She'll make jokes about how silly she was being, like, "You shoulda known something was wrong when you saw me crying and singing along to Dashboard Confessional" or "Yeah, I wish I had last week me here so I could punch me in the face." She'll make funny faces. She won't really be able to sleep, but it's ok because she'll be busy again and have plenty to distract her from anything unpleasant. She probably won't even do anything like this again until next year at some really stressful time, and she won't expect you to care.
Yeah.
You can have her back next week.
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