Fourteen Hours

22:15, 16 May 2003

He called, of course. The hourglass of my sanity was upended, all is right again, for a time. He will pick me up tomorrow at LAX. Tomorrow, tomorrow. Fourteen hours. How will the airport greeting be? Only two other boys have met me at the airport: John and Josh. I barely remember either of those arrivals, so I suppose it is not a big deal, in the long run. Piyush doesn�t make big emotional scenes anyway; I�m sure it will be just a short kiss and a hug for a second longer than usual. No chick-flick swirl-me-around hug. Because it�s hard to swirl my fat ass around, from a logistical sense.

I am fat, by the way. I seriously am feeling so fat as to cry. What if he thinks I�m fat when he picks me up? What if he sees me and wonders what he ever saw? Has the switchover happened already?

I don�t know what to wear to the graduation banquet. A friend gave me the most glorious Betsey Johnson dress to wear; I love it. But what if he does not? Cybele, I�m just not strong enough for this! I don�t have any preferences! I just want him to like it! I don�t care! I don�t care! Whatever he wants; whatever he wants. Don�t make me choose, please. Don�t make me screw it up again. Don�t make me pick so that I can pick the wrong thing yet again. I just can�t take it.

I�m so full of weirdness right now. I feel fat. I feel worthless and lazy, as my mother told me I was this morning. I feel inadequate and unmissed.

At first I was going to write that I just want to crawl away into a hole and cry, but that�s not true. What I actually want to do is crawl into Piyush�s arms and have him tell me that he likes me just the way I am and that he wouldn�t change anything about me ever and that he wants to stay with me in LA this summer and that everything is going to be all right. But the irony is that you know I would never crawl into those arms and I would never cry on that shoulder and I would never believe those words of unconditionality because� because� well, I don�t know why. But I just wouldn�t. Couldn�t. So instead, I�ll crawl into my bed and face the demons behind my eyelids.

Overextension

13:03, 16 May 2003

I was downstairs, making lunch. I put a pot on boil for some mac n� cheese. Mom came into the kitchen, raging at me. Telling me that I�ve been lazing around all week and she�s sick of my procrastination. �You cry about how you have nothing, you have no friends, nothing ever happens for you. Do you want things offered to you under your nose? Nothing�s going to happen for you. No one gives a shit about you. You have to go out and do it for yourself

It doesn�t sound like much of a rant, but it got to me. I hate to be yelled at. I hate to be told I�m lazy (probably because I am lazy). I hate having things that I recognise as weaknesses paraded before me and criticised. I am wounded and I am responding in a very mature way. I feel hateful and ugly and fat and inadequate. I feel lazy and stupid and worthless�and sorry for myself. I feel like I want to get back at her.

I did the things she wanted me to do. Now I�m going to clean my room, pack my things for LA tomorrow. I am not speaking to her for the rest of the day. You think I�m kidding. If she wants to yell at me, she can talk to a wall for the rest of the day, because I�m just not going to respond. I�m certainly not going out for a goodbye dinner tonight, which was the plan.

What makes it all worse is that I�m already feeling vulnerable and inappreciable because of Piyush. I feel I�ve overextended myself. I feel I�ve reached out too much. He didn�t call me yesterday when he handed in my paper for me. Well, he did call my house at 17:30 but didn�t leave a message there or on my cell. I had to call him at 19:15 and then he was sarcastic about it, saying he hadn�t turned it in yet (which would mean it was late), and of course I didn�t get the joke and so I got mad and he laughed at me for taking it all so seriously. Then I told him I�d call him back later and I did, at 1am EST. He didn�t pick up, so I left a message that I was going to bed and he should call me in the morning. Then this morning I missed him still, and so I texted him that I was sorry we hadn�t spoken last night and �have a fun day� or whatever.

That�s three times. Three times I�ve reached out to him. I never do that. I call once and then I wait for reciprocation. I never reach out three times. I feel vulnerable, naked in the wind, rejected. I know he has family keeping him busy, I know he might have been out of service when I called and then not have called back because I�d gone to bed, I know he�s probably not even awake yet today. But I still feel I�ve overextended myself to him. I still feel like I miss him and he doesn�t miss me and I�m not important and he�ll forget all about me as soon as he leaves.

His brother arrives today, which means he�s even more involved with LA activities. He and his brother will go partying tonight and I won�t enter his mind once, I�m sure. He�ll be having too much fun. He�s got all his people around him�he doesn�t need me.

You know I�m not going to call him. Three times is enough. I�m done. I won�t contact him again until he reaches out to me. I�m so stubborn and defensive that if he hasn�t called all day, I will not even call him to confirm when he�s picking me up at LAX tomorrow. I will fly to LA and take a damn Town Car home from the airport just so I can prove that I�m not relying on him and I don�t need him. It�s the self-sufficiency guilt trip. �I don�t need you but I was letting you help me so you could be involved with my life, so don�t you feel like shit now that you blew that opportunity?�

The only reason I have not called
is simply
because I want to so badly.

Well, I can't do anything about that, but I can take action against Mom. Now, today, I want to make her feel like shit. Because she�s made me feel like shit. And I already do that well enough on my own, thank you very much. God, I hope she feels so fucking guilty when I go insane this summer. It took two slices on my wrists and a diagnosis of bipolar for her to realize that I might be mentally unstable and not just an irritable bitch that�s bad with money sometimes and lays around on the sofa sleeping all day like an unmotivated slug sometimes. It would be worth it to do something drastic like not eat anything for months just to see the look on her face when her darling daughter looks like a starved torture victim. �Look, Mom! I hurt! I hurt! Now do you believe me that I hurt and I have some problems that are more serious than simple laziness and ingratitude?�