9:24 p.m. - 05/21/03
[::^what is real and just a dream:::^}
Blame the flurazepam. It's so easy to blame the drugs.
Mistrandy was worried when she saw me today; she said I looked pale and asked if she'd woken me up. I told her no (on the contrary, I'd been fighting to stay awake on her behalf), and we cut the day short on account of us both needing an early end. She'd had a rough day - one of the senior students (whom she had, and liked, as a freshman) was killed in a car accident, and another student apparently committed suicide. Have I said before that bad things always happen between the nineteenth and twenty-third of the month? Well, they do. They probably happen at other times, too, but I never fail to notice them around this time. Today was one of the anniversaries I didn't even catch until typing the date for an essay (in which I used "I" - and had an identity), more evidence of my absolute inability to keep my eyes open or articulate coherent thought. I didn't get my necessary two or three naps in today, so I'm a little worn. (This is going to stop soon, right? My body's going to stop feeling like it needs 20 hours of sleep a day, and I'm going to be able to have some sort of "life" again? And I *will* stop feeling lazy for something I can't even control? Correct?) Bah. Blame the meds. It's easy to hate the meds.
Obviously, I haven't had many adventures during this little tete-a-tete with narcolepsy. I'm trying to stay afloat within my schoolwork despite the complete lack of time (suddenly) to do any of it. Rereading Beloved to taper the mindlessness of the assignments I received belatedly, tossing out soc assignments, writing essays, and taking tests. I took about 1.4 physics tests today. When I finish that last .6 or so, I'll be ready for the exam. Exams. Hopefully starting next week. And then graduation and freedom and the complete surreality of a diploma I never thought would come from a high school whose colors I don't even know. Blue and gold? Blue and white? Blue and something...
I started thinking today about the speeches that will be given at Neverland's graduation, and it made me want to be there, sitting among the only real classmates I've had. I know it sounds like another side-effect of the medication, but I honestly would like to watch these "kids" I've known since kindergarten stand up to the podium, in cape and gown, and speak. I have no idea who our valedictorian is. I have no idea who our class president is. I have no idea how to accept the fact that I'm saying "our" when I swore I'd never go back there. But the kids were not the ones who made me swear that. These are the kids I ran through the old playground with, before they tore it down and built a stupid one. These are the kids I've paired with for projects since the second grade, the names shuffled into class lists every year, the kids I called the day of registration to check for schedule overlap. And they're going to dress up, throw gowns on, take pictures, have parties, go to college, get jobs, and live lives. And there's a part of me that just wants to be there. There's a part of me that knows I'm still in their yearbook. And if I could go without any fuss over where I've been all this time, any pain over what that school actually is, or any chance of being hurt yet again, I would.
I know in reality, the ceremony would be annoying, and the superintendent would talk about God (in a public school) and make me crazy, and the speeches would probably be disappointing, trite. It's just, this is the year it matters for me. This is the year I know the names being called out. This is the year where the mushy, cliche words almost ring true. And there's this need inside me to see those faces and those forms again. N*land: We Survived. We went through hell, and we made it, and for some of us, it wasn't that bad, and for some of us- it was bad enough we had to leave our sophomore (me) or junior (my brother) years ... But I miss these kids. I feel separate from them, like I've been to continents they don't yet know, and at the same time attached, and aware that they have been to places I can only imagine. You know, I'm graduating high school incapable of applying make-up, never having been on a date, never having received my first kiss, never having learned to drive, and not having set foot inside a classroom in two-and-a-half years? I'm disproportionately proud of some of those things. But I still know who I sat by in third grade and who I played four-square with in fifth. And there's something weird coming up...nostalgia? I guess it's separate from the trauma. I can think of my classmates and not remember my classes, not remember my teachers, not remember the illness they exacerbated thoughtlessly. I made it. I made it. It's weird...
Homebound to homefree in less than two weeks...
I don't know what else to say. I'm having a hard time with missing Rogers and an easier time with food. I need to feel some icky feelings and at the same time, I'm tired of only hearing negative talk about the diseases I have. I feel like I, if anyone, should start to point out why all this is good again. Why I love it. Why I need it. Why it's better.
I need to start writing a journal instead of a sales pitch.
chord
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