12:05 a.m. - 2008-07-28
anxiety trumps the way to ze jack of clubs
When we took off there was an air of bitterness hanging around the car, but I put the windows down and drove with a purpose that seemed to dispel it, or at least conceal it well enough. There was laughing and stories and a lightness that was effortless. The need to become an adult sneaks into the crevices of the desire to stay young forever and takes over. We tell ourselves we want to remember this, but years from now it will make seemingly little difference.
Ryan explains it best. He says that the past ten years have all been more or less the same. From the age of 10 to 20, the only thing that really changes is location, of school, of friendship, of goals. Mostly everything else stays the same. He says the next 10 years are terrifying because these are the years when you're supposed to end school and get a house and a steady job and maybe start a family. He says he is scared to death. I just stay quiet and pretend it's not happening. Why did Tink leave me behind? I would have gone. I would have left this place.
We get there and they dance around us begging for attention, pleading to entertain us, knowing that we are watching them and searching them. Or I am. I watch closely, not with condescension, but with a need to understand. I want to understand. I ask too many questions, get too many accidental bumps, get too anxious over time. Time causes so many issues lately, I'm either losing it, or being trapped by it.
We watch it all come down and suddenly it ruins the magic. It all folds into itself, swallows itself whole and before you know it, fists are being thrown and it's all supposed to be good natured. It is hot and the humidity is higher than the level of genuine courteousness. This means that we're stuck. together. in this situation. Until a higher power feels it necessary to let us go.
The air cools around 1:30 in the morning and I hug myself, partially from the chill and partially because the anxiety of responsibility is eating at my stomach and I am afraid that if I do not keep my arms in this position, I will not be able to hold myself up and I will sink to the filth of a left over good time that is beneath me.
Two am and I start to push the subject, not knowing why I am so nervous. I casually mention to a few people that I have to be in charge of a whole crew in a little over 4 hours. I find I have often been told that time passes seemingly slower if you continuously look at your watch, but I disagree. I found that not having Tink only led to more of a feeling of impending doom, which is dramatic, but feelings tend to be exaggerated without meaning to be; for some reason feelings have a strange way of being mostly unreasonable.
We take off around 2:30 after too many hugs and kisses and well wishes. A family affair, a goodbye that has an indeterminate expiration. I simply do not know how long it is good for, nor when we will attempt to renew it. I drive 80-85 all the way home, with the car occasionally swerving. I need this chance at a lack of control. I need to beat it. Somehow the speed, in time with my heartbeat, calms me. I can't even speak, can hardly breathe, for fear of everything shutting down.
3:30 and we're back in familiar territory. Two and a half hours isn't too bad. I try to reason with myself, but in this state, I am rarely capable of pragmatism. I send off hugs and goodnights and thank yous and climb the stairs to the part of home that always manages to entice me. I sink in, wrapped up in a cloud of comfort and finally I exhale.
I watch the clock for the next two hours. For fear of not walking up, I do not sleep and when I climb out of bed at 6, my head feels heavy and I feel emotionally strained and ready for practically nothing. It pours as I walk to work and the rain helps to wake me. The day drags. We're busy. The phone rings constantly. I am not short with them, but hardly as nice as I typically am.
When I come home, I can't talk to them because I find myself blaming them. They're the same. They are one person to me today. And I cannot speak. I don't remember the stairs or changing or climbing into bed or much of anything else, but I slept for many hours of fitful and occasionally interrupted sleep.
I can't help but notice my fall. I don't believe that is how importance is measured, but it affected me more than I liked. Additionally, Amanda may be a TL and while that could be fun, I wanted this to be my thing. Sometimes I feel suffocated by people who are unwilling to move forward. Amanda and Jessie like to keep the number at 4. Chan and I try to expand that. Four is a big number, but there can't just be that. We have to push ourselves. We have to grow, or we will suffocate here.
Additionally secrets have been breaking me and the need for a "We need to talk," while feeling imminent, is being avoiding. I'll probably just let this go because I don't know how I would handle the refusal to fight.
I came to the important realization today that I typically greatly dislike other peoples' or persons' opinions unless I know them and ask for them. I tend to skip over comment sections because they just make me angry. I feel like this is an important, though probably not a good, character trait of mine. I typically find other people ridiculous, but not in the good way- more in the useless and unnecessary way.
I want to see you again.
