Sunday, June 12, 2005

Intended for post yesterday.
I probably haven’t slept for more than about 3 consecutive hours in over a week.

It’s gotten suddenly hot, so, without an adjustment period, the heat is impossible to take at night. I’m still working on getting all my schoolwork wrapped up, my inferiority complex is flaring up again, I haven’t had acne like this in about a year, I’ve been on-and-off sick for nearly a month now, and no one ever gives me good news.

Every morning, someone tells me about the minor crisis they’ve had recently, so I can’t tell them what really worries and bothers me. It’s flattering, being confidant to about 3 people with a lot of incidental confessions from assorted people in addition, but it’s something that I guess only people who help carry a lot of other people’s problems really get what it’s like. There are some people who are confidant to one person, some people who find out when it’s all over, and some people who listen to a lot of problems. For some reason, I end up hearing the problems of a lot of the people I come in frequent contact with.

And, like I said, it’s flattering, but once you’ve heard everyone else’s issues, you can’t really tell them what bothers you. You can’t listen to why she’s in a fight with her parents or the reason she doesn’t know if going away this summer is a good idea and then tell her what’s bothering you. It’s like, you don’t let someone unburden, then burden them all over again. And when you get saddled with a lot of issues, you end up never telling anyone. I used to have a journal to take care of that, but I’d stopped that when my wrists got weak. During that time, typing was easier, so I really got into blogging to unburden. I think I’ll have to pick up journaling again next year, because the way things are looking, I’m going to be very busy and things are going to get worse.

On the day of the rotation that Friday was, my friend usually stops for me at my locker and we walk down to band together. I didn’t see her, so I headed down, and realized at the bottom of the stairs that I had beaten her down. I laughed, since it was the first time all year I’d done so, and she kind of smiled at me and was really quiet, so I asked her if she was okay. I’ve known her since she was 7 or 8, so I could kind of tell she was either sick of hurting. She glanced around really fast, like she wanted to make sure someone wasn’t there, and there was this kid behind us she was trying get further away from before she whispered, “Promise you won’t tell?” so I thought he’d asked her out or something, so I thought it was a repeat of last year, except this kid might have made a half-decent boyfriend (compared to the last one).

She whispers to me that her parents are getting a separation and she starts tearing up.

I’ve known her for 9 or 10 years and I’ve known her parents almost as long. And even though I’ve been drifting away from a lot of people I used to be really close to, I guess the two of us never really fell apart so far as I’d thought, or maybe she just needed to tell someone she really knows. We all kind of grew up together, the 5 of us. Or at least, we started to.

I’m a horrid counselor, especially when it comes to touchy subjects (I can do the whole, “Well, it’s your homework to do, you wouldn’t let her copy yours because she was too busy watching OnDemand, so does it shock you that she won’t for you?!” type spiel quite well), but I can listen, so I said something like, “Oh, God …” and hugged her, and then band started.

During class, the director was a little rough on her section, and she’d found of the night before, and I guess I’d just reopened the wound, and afterward, before I could even unhook my seat strap and set my instrument down, she came over and sat down next to me and was crying on my shoulder.

Which nearly made me cry too, but I didn’t think that would help her any, so I didn’t. I just kind of hugged her while a bunch of her friends patted her shoulder and awkwardly said something like, “Hey, it’s okay,” which may not have made her feel much better, but it made me feel better for her. In a couple minutes, everyone had cleared out. Awfully fast, too. The director was really nice about her talking to me in there for about 15 minutes about it, too. I guess she saw it coming but didn’t think it would, and then she found out. She said her mom wants it because her dad still has faith in the church, and her dad was really upset, and she was crying the whole time, and we’re just sitting there, in this hot, stuffy, smelly room, kind of hugging with one hand and holding up our instruments with the other. When she’d calmed down a little, we went and got passes to go back to class, and the director was really good about it. For all that everyone complains and hates him, I guess we all know that he kind of looks after us. I don’t think he lives with his son, so I guess I kind of get it. We went in, asked if we could have a pass, and he offered to listen as an adult who won’t judge if she needed and ear, she said no thanks, he said okay, she stepped outside with her pass, and he wrote one up for me and just kind of asked if it was home related, so I kind of nodded and said yeah and thanks and took my pass. I couldn’t walk all the way with her, so I kind of hugged her and went to class.

Needless to say, I couldn’t stop thinking about her all day, and I just felt crappier than I had before, when all I had was a knot in my gut. But I guess that numbed me up enough to give my ecoproject, which was one of my ulcers that day. I managed to talk for 30 minutes on shooting bison over the hum of three fans and a hallway without any of my typical almighty stutters on about 5 hours of broken sleep. (I stutter when I talk in front of people. Not so much talking in front of people or talking to people but giving a prepared speech. Unless I’m numb.)

I guess she’d only told one other person before me, another one of the 5 of us. And when I saw her later, I think she was telling the other girl. I don’t know when the girl in Minnesota will find out. I can’t tell her, though I want to, because she’s the only person I can really tell things now, because I always could tell her better than anyone else and she’s removed from the action, because it’s not my place to tell her. I’m kind of surprised that we’re the first friends she told though. I know that my friendships with them have changed a lot over the last 2 years, but I’m sure hers have too, at least a little. And I hate to say it, but it almost made me feel good to be a confidant to one of them again. I feel so bad, but I almost felt like things were the way they used to be when we were in fifth grade.

But after all that, I went to the home of one of the growing numbers of casual friends I have to work on a math project, and it was really hot, but we got work done anyway. Also, I bought from an ice cream truck for the first time in my life. Yes, I’ve lived almost 17 years and never bought from an ice cream truck. I also went to the library book sale and picked up 10 paperbacks and a hardcover for 3 dollars. Which kind of made me feel better.

After we got home, I told my mom about my friend. It’s like, I can’t keep that one to myself and have my mom find out later. I spent a week depressed over my friend’s dad finally finding a job in Minnesota so they’d have to move before my mom found out (partly because my friend told me while on a three day school trip), and she just kind of said, “You know, you could have told me.” So I told her this time, because someone in the house has to know what the hell’s wrong with me at the moment.

Then, today, when we were at Kohl’s, I kind of had a lapse and I started crying. I have been wanting to cry all week, you know, have a catharsis, but I don’t think I meant to do it in the middle of the swimsuit section of a store where people I know shop. I was thinking about how swimsuits don’t actually stretch, my acne is disgusting, my friend is going to have to go through who gets the house then who gets custody, and the last time all 5 of us were in my pool, and my mom was there if your suit is a little too big, you really need a new one and I just had a moment of you don’t need a suit that actually fits right if you don’t have friends because then the only place you’ll wear it is in your pool with your siblings because you won’t be going anywhere swimming or having anyone over.

I think a lot of that actually had to do with me, in addition, having spent all week up late in the heat reading chick lit because it’s really too hot to try to sleep till about midnight and having a cruddy month really makes you want to read books where the scumbags get sued for all they’re worth and the ######## get married.

So, after a stop at Old Navy (mental note to go back to check out the skirts when summer stuff goes on clearance), I’ve watched the edited for TV version of The Breakfast Club, which is even more fantastically poorly edited than the edited for health class version.

I need to stop talking about now, because I’m sick of spending my time making myself sad.

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