It all starts with a Friday.
For me, the scariest thing about the week is when the week ends and I don't have any place to go or anyone to see on a Friday night because I'm a busy college student and when I was a Freshman I only made friends with upperclassmen because they're smart and mature and I hate people my age because they don't know anything. So now, I have no friends because everyone graduated. (That's a lie. I have friends but they're not the closest of friends and I have to try a little harder.)
Anyway, the thought of being stuck in my tiny, concrete box that is supposed to serve as a dorm room feels like a microwave and I have to fight the urge to start trying to scratch off the ugly, tan paint (that will probably give me lead poisoning at the end of my college career) little by little while blasting music on repeat that screams about how we're here now and thus demanding entertainment.
I need a strait jacket to protect myself from innocent bystanders.
By midnight on Friday night I turn into a shell of the girl I thought I was. In the dark I sit and stir and stew and stare: no one likes me, no one wants to be my friend, I'm single and alone, I'm going to die alone because no one will ever love me, I blew my chance at love, I'll never get married, I'll never get to kiss someone ever again. On and on until it's just one word over and over that is repeated in my mind. Alone.
Then it only takes something as little as someone uploading a picture of people that I used to call friends. It could be a status. It could be a text. It could be a sticky note I forgot in a notebook somewhere that says, "I will always love you"
I collapse onto my bed, hiding from social media, my computer, my phone, my reflection. Hidden under a thousand blankets and hoodies because I used to be a kleptomaniac and steal anything comforting from people who I wished would give them to me. Other people's boyfriends t-shirts, a blanket that an aunt made for a nephew, a hoodie that someone let me borrow because I'm perpetually freezing, all of these and more smother me like a burrito of sadness and self-pity.
I can do nothing but wait until the sun shows it's fucking obnoxious optimistic yet sadistic bastard face.
On Saturday I try to distract myself. Netflix binging, book reading, homework procrastinating, and killing zombies on an Xbox that won't tell anyone that I'm really playing on easy mode. The cafeteria is terrifying but because I'm broke and perpetually hungry, I go. I don't wash my hair, I don't put on makeup, and I wear the bulkiest hoodie I own. I look like I've never seen people before and that I might start growling at any moment. I respond to people through a series of grunts. Needless to say, I sit alone.
Saturday night I give in and give up trying to distract myself. I watch a dangerous cocktail of horror movies and cheesy romantic comedies while feeding myself chips and salsa and cold medicine in hopes I can finally sleep.
I can't.
By Sunday morning I am the definition of desperate. There's tortilla chip stuck in my hair and I check my phone every 3 seconds to see if someone has decided to spend time with me.
They don't.
Sunday afternoon I take a shower. I feel the desperation and isolation melt away. I am bright red after standing in the scalding water for an hour. I look at my wrinkly hands, sit down, and cry for another hour. Red and wrinkly, I emerge from the steam. I avoid mirrors. I start my homework.
By 3am I find myself tired for the first time all weekend.
I crash and burn hard. I wakeup too early to a Monday. Blessed Monday. On Monday I resume my life of an overachiever. I go to meetings before meetings and prep sessions before classes. I am on the run, I am all over campus, I am superwoman. I can fake it until I make it. I get caught up and overwhelmed by schedules and responsibilities and all I want to do is take a nap. I don't need to define myself by my relationship status or by how many friends I have. I can take on my future one baby step at a time. I can go the distance. I can quote Disney songs to make myself sound relatable.
I make it until Friday.
Then it starts over.
~
I need to learn to not define myself by my success or my failures. I need to not define myself by my relationships. There's only one relationship I should focus on.
I just don't know how to get there yet.
I don't know how to get to wholeness just yet.
This is the Admission.
~
Things I am thankful for today:
1. Skullcandy Earbuds
2. Coffee ice cream
3. People who tell me I'm full of shit.
No comments:
Post a Comment