I know I just have to endure

I am well aware of the liberation which the college environment offers. It's a matter of enduring another 214 days until I graduate. I am fortunate to be graduating a year early; the idea of another full year after this one is grotesque.

All the same, I have lately resorted to binge drinking and cutting. I have carved the word HATE into my arms and legs and enjoyed myself in doing so. Because I do hate him, now. I finally have reason to unequivocally, absolutely, without remorse despise that wretched creature.

I spend my time languishing. I would like to sleep all the time, but the downside to sleep is that it necessitates waking up. When I am unfortunately awake, I am either trundling through school or sedentarily listening to music -- or abusing myself.

Music is all that has kept me going. Having lost all respect and tolerance for writing and reading fiction, poetry, anything but the political journalism to which I am addicted (for ten years I was a writer, but the pursuit has not done anything to sate my need for far too long, and I no longer even call myself "writer"), if I couldn't plug myself into my headphones for hours at a time, I would have nothing but self-destruction to occupy my waking hours.

I am sick to death of my friends and family, and will not miss any of them -- though some of them seem to care about me -- when the hour of blessed liberation is upon me. I don't spend time outside of school with other people. I live in my room, sneaking down to the kitchen to eat when nobody is around.

Ah, but I loathe the company of my parents. Their judgment and contempt are constant. I have learned to walk stealthily at night so as not to awaken them. They don't give a damn that I'm gay, they're liberal people; this isn't about my sexual orientation, which has caused me very little anguish.

On Thursday evening I decided I wasn't going to school. Since I was unable to fall asleep until 3 in the morning, as usual, I didn't start getting ready until about 6:25 on Friday morning (yesterday, as of the time of this post). At 6:50 I had readied myself, but at that point the bus had already left.

This left me in a quandary: if I had downstairs (where my parents were) to put on my shoes, and then had walked out the door, my parents would have noticed that I was leaving after the bus had come. Yet I was determined not to go to school ... and if I could get out of the house without attracting their notice, they would assume I had caught the bus.

I gazed out my window. My bedroom is on the second story. Not that big of a drop, right? I slid part of the way out the window, keeping a firm grip on the sill. I could just slide right down to the sidewalk. I could then proceed to the garage, where I would hopefully find a pair of shoes. "What the hell," I said to myself. "At worst I'll bleed on the sidewalk. Then I can drag myself into the house and bleed all over her precious fucking carpet and furniture."

I released my grip on the sill. The pain upon impact was the worst physical pain I have ever experienced. It consumed everything. After a moment I crawled into the garage. There were, of course, no shoes. So I had to lurch into the house. I claimed to have missed the bus, and passed my limp off as having resulted from overzealous running the night prior.

My father drove me to school. I hobbled to the nearest bathroom, and ensconced myself within for the next three and a half hours, my music keeping me company. I sat atop the (thankfully clean) toilet, cross-legged, to avoid putting any pain on my feet. I went to two different lunches, retreating to the bathroom between the lunches. I did stagger into last period, fielding constant questions about my stagger. And then the bus came. Getting onto and off of the bus was an incredible stagger, but upon getting home, I popped three Advil and crept up to my bedroom.

I have been here since. During one of my infrequent, brief trips downstairs (going down the stairs has been hell, but more Advil has been worth hell), I spent a few moments reading the Washington Post on the couch. My pajama bottoms had ridden too high up on my legs, but I hadn't noticed, and so my mother caught sight of some of the -- decoration -- I have added. I passed it off as being the fault of the cat and hobbled back up to my room.

My feet may be better tomorrow; I'm not counting on being able to walk fluidly until Monday. I am much closer, now, to being able to stand and walk without pain. I look forward to being able to run again. Running is, I admit, still a pleasure. Perhaps I will even run to the gym. Quite possibly I will use my regained physical prowess to properly implement my schoolday-at-the-mall plan. The thought of entering that albatross is hard to countenance.

 

Typos of all sorts abound! Gah. All of my usual rough draft errors: homonym confusion, droppings of the ends of sentences ... why must this forum time-limit its edit function?