The mysterious ticking noise

That sound? There... do you hear it?

Those of you who have known me since high school might remember when I was in eleventh grade and I had a schedule that looked something like this:

Friday morning - APUShistory exam
Friday night: junior prom
Saturday morning: three SAT II exams
Tuesday morning: AP chemistry exam


This is worse. This is insidious and overwhelming and I just need everyone to take, like, seventeen giant leaps backwards. No mother-may-I or "b-b-b-but!!!!" Just step backwards and let me, I don't know, breathe or something. Because I feel like I've been holding my breath since the end of May waiting for this being home thing to make me even remotely happy. But it hasn't yet.

It started at the airport when I came out of customs expecting to be welcomed by my parents. No phone, no money I could exchange, and a total of thirty American cents. No parents. I hadn't slept in about seventy-two hours and I just wanted to go home and sleep until August. They were half an hour late picking me up. But whatever. That seemed a minor glitch.

But it just kept going wrong everywhere I turned. Every time I got upset, I felt like I had someone telling me I had no right. When I let a tiny piece of what I was really feeling show (the day after Evan's party, which featured the guest of "honor" not showing up until after it had begun, thus avoiding any of the work for preparing it) and I let myself cry, only one person actually cared more about me being okay than either of the two

1. making every thing look more orderly and clean
2. taking a photo of this moment (I mean, honestly, why?)

And then they asked me to express insincere sentiments, to be gracious and kind to near-total strangers, to channel it into something they considered productive.

Do you remember when I was twelve and my grandfather had just died? At the airport, we were trying to change our tickets so we could fly home and you asked me to let it show a little more, so that it seemed more believable, so they would understand that this was important.

And I love you, but I can't be told how to grieve. I can't be told how to mourn or who I should be mourning with and under what circumstances.

Then I started working incredibly long days. Leaving the house at quarter-to-six and only getting home at 6:30, after a long day of buses, screaming children, uptight bosses, and Creepy Train Conductor Dude. Listen, I've been on "full-steam ahead" since June 22nd and I would like very much to be able to take five minutes when I am not thinking about anything else. I'm not sleeping well, I'm not eating well, and I don't feel healthy.

I don't know how to say this to your face.

My best friends are scattered and/or too busy for me. France, Virginia, Scotland, and college-friend obligations... I come home and I just want to check my email, eat, and go to bed. If I want eight hours of sleep, I need to be asleep by nine PM. So I don't have time for a two-and-a-half hour movie. Or even, really, a two-hour movie. I feel guilty watching half-hour episodes of TV because that time would be better spent planning for the next day and sleeping. I need time to actually just be alone and not think about this. But no one ever makes it easy. I don't want to deal with The Brat or his stupid comments that I can barely stand on a good day. (I haven't had a good day in a long time.)

On weekends, I typically have family obligations and that's cool, I suppose, but maybe on occasion I would enjoy not having to be "On." And I have to be on and social for those or I seem spoiled and bratty.

Two things were supposed to be good (and only two things). The sixth Harry Potter movie, which turned out to be WAY more stress and frustration than it was worth. And the Jackson Browne concert, which was used as a bargaining chip and took away so much of the sweetness. (How could you even suggest taking that away from me? It was quite literally the only thing I had to look forward to and the only reason I was not freaking out way more.)

I hate my job, I hate coming home to being nagged and nitpicked about stupid things, I hate sandwiches, I hate salad, I hate my stupid hips, my stupid knees, my stupid cat, I hate being expected to be the same person I was before I left for Scotland, I hate that I don't really have any time alone or even just with old friends, and I hate, especially, that he is allowed to treat me the way he treats me.

I'm not sure, at this point, how to get across how much I hate the way he treats me. I've tried responding in kind and I get the warning tone and anger. I hate when people vent to me about my family, I hate when people act like I have any control over what he does.




And that's not even getting into school and all of the attendant stress of being a senior in college. (Way worse than a senior in high school, because at least back then, they knew what choices they wanted me to make and now I'm expected to read their minds so I know which choice is the right one for me.... because I clearly am not qualified to make a single decision for myself. Not even about which chocolate I would prefer.)

Basically, I don't want to be here, surrounded by you.