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9:11 p.m. - 06/27/03
everything is still with a fear ... of never following through
I now have the unfortunate responsibility of admitting there's more to my life than Harry Potter. (Though I did forget to mention that I might have to start using the term "Healer" instead of "Doctor" - for those who deserve it, obviously ... and that I joined just about every Harry Potter ring available. Whee...) And I don't particularly like the things that make that statement true. I suppose that's why I spend so much time contending that I don't have a life, but when you're fighting this hard for it, it seems ludicrous to overlook the achievement. Guess what! - I woke up today! ... Of course, the new sleeping pills had me back and bed off and on until just a few hours ago, but, hey... Et cetera. I just got an e-mail from a friend of mine, one I haven't spoken to since I started homebound (regrettable that.) She responded to a graduation card I sent her, and I was really glad. I was also really glad to hear her plans for the fall, even though I'm not sure I should be. She's commuting to a local school (local to N*land), which made me feel like I'm not the only person in the world who isn't jetting off to new worlds come September. But then, I wondered if that was a good reason. I mean, this girl is incredible. I don't want her wasted on some silly local school. Except, why do I assume she'll be wasted? She made her decision, it's not Ivy League, it's not out-of-state, it's not inherently self-destructive. I think I'm so used to beating myself up over the whole college thing that I'm forgetting the rhetoric of that abuse is not actually accurate. The school is actually the one my sister attended, and she's certainly leading a successful, important, fulfilling life... The important point is the one I'm not bringing up. Hampshire. College. Me. The future I really need to be talking about (not to mention the present; it could use some articulation as well) is my own...

I haven't really wanted to go into the whole Hampshire thing because I haven't wanted to admit that, whether or not it would have pre-April-Fool's-Day, that rejection has seriously succeeded in fucking me up. Of course, it had assistance - ten years of schooling at Neverland, for example - but the reality right now is that I am, for several reasons (Hampshire being one of them) terrified that I'm approaching a chasm rather than a life. A dark hole out of which I will never climb. And I'm trying to imagine things differently - to imagine a (by my definition) "cute" apartment with a roommate, friends who visit, friends I visit, a job where I'm (prepare for a monster cliche) "making a difference" for people. I'm trying to believe in something else, or at least, to envision it long enough to keep myself from growing crazy at the idea that...I don't have a choice about being holed up in a dark apartment, even if I'm not planning to write the Great American Novel. The truth is that right now I feel considerably helpless - given my parents' crumbling marriage, my total isolation, and the ever-invisible obstacle of my disease. I'm scared that Rogers was my last good thing...as if it isn't difficult enough to lose, without the added bonus of believing I'll never again have anything remotely close to it.

Why do I believe this? I'm not sure. I'm freaked about not having a clear plan for what I'm going to do; the idea that I've graduated and am not accepted into a school for this fall finally sunk in and left its nasty imprint. That goes against all the N*land rules about the correct path - something I wish comforted me, but unfortunately without another path to claim as mine, with this complete uncertainty about whether I'm progressing at all - not coloring inside their lines terrifies a bit. More than a bit. I don't like the idea that I have no clue when the house will sell and allow my mom and I to move. I don't like the idea that I have to move with her, as every day I spend with my dad makes it more clear this looks like I favor her...not to mention I just want to be outside her world. I am tired of only seeing friends of hers. I want to have friends of my own. I am tired of the on-line world, of guestbooks, and e-mail, and notes, and IM - I'm even tired of those rare phone calls that mean so much... I want to make my way back among the living, and I don't see how I can do it. It's not simply that I don't know how to feel safe connecting with people (and find the lack of connection fundamentally soul-sucking) - it's that I don't know what it would take to feel safe. I not only lack the resources; I lack knowledge of what the resources are, and so I'm scared that even when we do live in the city, and I am able to access more, I won't be able to do so. I'm scared that I won't beat this thing. It's been around so long...at least fourteen years...I can't imagine life without it, and I can't live life with it, so...where does that leave me?

I told the doctor this, in tears. I'd already been sobbing over all the home stuff that I couldn't cry over Wednesday, and then I told him I'm just scared that I'm going to fall off the map, that I'm just going to slip away. He said what he always says. He asked me if I really thought that the people who care about me would sit by and watch that happen. I said a horrible thing that I needed to say - the one I was thinking, which sounds accusatory but really, really isn't; it's just fear. I said, "You said that about my parents, too. You said that you were stubborn and wouldn't give up, and now they're crumbling." He asked me if I felt he'd made a promise about them. I said no. I know he never gave a guarantee. All he ever gave me was hope, and I'm not about to start arresting people on that charge. I told him I just feel like if they didn't make it, maybe I won't either. And he looked at me and said the fear was absolutely valid but the logic is crazy. I wish I could believe that. Maybe I even do, a little. My parents chose to give up on a relationship; I've already proved that I'm not giving up on my own work. And all signs point to progress. If I look at my life, everything from Rogers on has been a step in the right direction (though I occasionally went the hard way and had to circle back to a safer path...) I don't have any rational reason to believe that I'm going to fail at this, but that doesn't keep me from obsessing, thinking, "What if I do?"

Ever since I had to apply to college, I've been thinking about whether or not I want to go. And watching "Is It College Yet?"^ hit home quite a bit. I do. At least, I want to try it. I really think it's what I want. I want a supportive, open environment, with people who can help me grow and create the life I want. If I don't find that in college, and I don't find an unforeseen reason that would justify staying, I'll leave. But ever since Hampshire's rejection, I've been trying to make myself believe that I don't really want to go, that real artists never take normal routes, that it's not the right place for me. The truth is, I'm scared. I'm scared of being rejected again, from a place that had a seriously good means of understanding who I am. I'm scared that I'll get rejected from everywhere else. I'm scared that it won't be good, and I'll be trapped there. I'm scared to put my life in the hands of people who might try and pull a N*land. I'm scared that I can't go, that I won't go, and that - without that - I'll just slide into some dark place where people who don't find the path to their best life go. Before I was homebound, school was...horrific...but it was also a definitive means of socialization. Rogers was the same way. The hard thing was finding a place to be alone. I feel like, in a city with a disease that keeps me terrified of entering it, I'll just disappear. Without some steady responsibility like school, I will cease to exist. I'm back to believing the work I do with recovery isn't enough. If all I do is go to therapy and try to be more myself, I'll fail to exist. And the things I could do - take classes, get a job, and so forth - are not things I can do. Not now. Whatever those resources are I'm still lacking them. I feel like at some point, a lifeline is going to be handed to me, and if I don't recognize it, grab it, pull myself up, I'll just stay in this still, dark, abandoned place.

He told me there are more chapters to my story, and they're good. I said, "unfortunately, they're all prequels." He told me better things are coming. I nodded...but it's as difficult trying to live in the future tense as it is trying to live in the past.

Maybe tomorrow I'll ask myself why I still believe this.

chord

^Daria movie

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