SO, when D at the the CHADD meetings found out about my trip (I'm in New York at the moment) he essentially told me to blog while I was gone. The problem with that, I have found, is that while doing things worth blogging about, I am, well, busy. Doing them. And when I'm not, when I have a minute, I'm not blogging because I'm taking that minute for myself. So I haven't really managed my time well enough to blog. I've only gone online twice before this, to email my family. I haven't even texted my friend like I said I would. I need to get on that...
But I digress. The only reason I'm (the following no longer applies as it is several hours after I first put pen to paper today; right now I'm at the computer. Duh.) sitting here right now, by myself in the basement apartment of my aunt and uncle's house with a blanket wrapped around me, scribbling away in a borrowed-without-permission-but-with-FULL-intent-of-returning binder is that, for once—or rather, for the first time this trip—the words came into my head and I couldn't stop them. Clear words, when I often think initially in intentions and impressions. The words were:
"I'm so overwhelmed right now. I'm so overwhelmed..." Completely and totally overwhelmed by what is going on with/to/for me. I had to "take a minute. Just a minute. Just a minute. A minute, a minute, a minute. A minute, I need a minute. Just a minute, a minute, a minute..."
Which I did, curling up with a blanket that doesn't smell like home wrapped loosely around me.
...
...
That reads, to those who don't speak panic-attack-ese: I took a blanket off 'my' bed, wrapped it around my shoulders, debated over bringing a stuffed animal with me, walked over my suitcase very carefully wihout looking at it as tears gathered in my eyes. It means that I sat down on the part of the couch I've spent the most time on, brought my legs up, and fell slowly over into the fetal position as I adjusted the blanket so it was over my head, still muttering (maybe, I'm not sure, I may just have been thinking it with increasing anxiety and decreasing coherence, as is often the case in such circumstances, about needing a minute, just a minute, a minute, a minute, a minute, a minute.
(Sounds poetic, doesn't it? It isn't.)
It means that I gave myself over to helpless, hopeless (I wasn't sure which so I went with both) shuddering as near-scalding tears rand across my face to my temple. It means I was listening to the sporadic pouding of feet over my head as my second cousins ran around and my aunt talking to my dad on the phone, and it means that I was hoping, vaguely but sincerely, that someone (Jen) would come downstairs and find me and hold me or something. But that, of course, didn't happen.
It hardly ever does.
And then it means, if you read very carefully and think about your own experiences in such things, that I stopped listening to them and started feeling the heat of my own frantic-ish breaths against my face, and that I realized somewhat that I did not, in fact, want to get up and walk over to my bed for my inhaler so I had to calm down. I started feeling, slightly, the pulsing pf blood through my veins as I started, perhaps, to regulate my breathing. Which of course got me thinking about runnings laps outside in the winter in my seventh grade year, and the female eighth grade Phys. Ed. teacher telling me/us to breathe in through our noses and out through our mouths. I did that for a bit, then shifted slightly and the blanket moved an inch or so and I could see light, which I didn't want, and smell fresh air, which I realized I kind of did.
I moved the blanket back to darkness and realized acutely that the blanket did NOT smell like home, or dreams, or anything familiar, not even, really, the house I was staying in, so likely it was the smell of the last person to use the blanket before me, which was weird. Then I rememberd, I think, that the teacher had actually said in through the mouth, out through the nose (so as not to harm the sinuses or somesuch thing) and started doing that instead.
That was about when I realized that there wasn't much difference between having my eyes open or closed. And no, that thought didn't lead to some for of epiphany. In fact, I'm not sure what I thought about then, but it wasn't long before the tears dried on my face, at that time proving I had taken several minutes, not one, and I sat up.
And started thinking about how D had said I should keep blogging while I'm gone. That was when I got the binder off the bookshelf. Then I sat back down and started writing.
As of now I'm starting (again, not true present tense as I'm on the computer, but whatever) my fourth front-side-only sheet of paper, and my hand is cramping because I've written so much in so short a period of time.
Yay me.
And Jen has come downstairs, though that was just to find out if I would prefer she drive me to the bus stop tomorrow, or her husband, my cousin. (I picked her because we get along really well, whereas I've never been all that close to my second-eldest cousin. [Hah, funny story: my eldest cousin was born on the due date of the aforementioned second-eldest, and vice versa—one was early, the other late, just enough so they switched birthdays.] )
I'm suddenly realizing I haven't eaten yet today, and that I should try to finish the "DEEP JUNGLE" level of Kingdom Hearts today AND that I need to pack up down here because my "jast murried" cousin and his wife are going to crash here tonight. Probably. And I'm leaving this place. Tomorrow. Not never-to-return or something—I'll be back in about two weeks—but I have to go and get on a bus at about one A.M. on Saturday to go to Maine.
Which is what started all of this, by the way. Talking about bus tickets and the buying thereof, and getting to the bus stop. And I'm proud of myself; I never once mentioned that I HATE BUSES.
I really do.
But, yeah. So, hmm, let's see... a quick (HA!) run-down of events since the night before I left.
I was supposed to have started packing the day before (Saturday) but I went and got my hair cut and then spent a few hours with my mom talking to my hairdresser, as apparently I now have one, and I'm not realy clear on what happened then, but I only got around to packing my new $60 purple suitcase on Sunday, late-afternoon at best. Then the Secoind Degree Sunburn for HELL that I got on Friday started acting up and giving me incredible amounts of pain. At which point I became essentially uselkess in the matter of packing my own luggage. I could and did, however, prove the case I've been making agains cleaning my room: I know almost precisely where nearly everything in my room is, even if you can't find it, thankyouverymuch.
In fact, there's a Marvel Universe character, Dr. Modern (not a superheo) who deals with things so case-sensitive that he doesn't use a filing system—he names folders things like "Weird" because he thinks the contents are weird, and leaves all the oddly labeled folders stacked around his place of residence/employment, I'm not sure which. And he can find anything he needs to because he memorizes the information and where he put it. No one would ever be able to be all in-steal/copy the file in question-out because they would have to look through everything!
So, yeah. Just because my room is terribly disorganized doesn't mean I don't know where things are. And a good portion of the tisme I can't find something it's because someone else touched it since last I did. So there! (Can't you just imagine someone stamping their foot and sticking their tongue out immediately after saying that? I can. But I didn't.)
Anyway, I proved my case, and after hours of intense discomfort I passed out on my mom's shoulder, my arms (where I was burned) wrapped in a towel or something with an ice pack and calami lotion, doped up in Benedryl. And they still hurt when I woke up.
But whatever. Dad drove me to the airport, and having already gotten special permission to come with me past security due to my anxiety issues, came in with me. He helped me with my bags, felt triumph over the fact that my larger bag weighed in at exactly 49 pounds... and got chosen for a 'random' search. Grr. And my bag was searched too, my carry-on! Apparently my tube of toothpaste was too big. I had to let them throw it away!!! I mean, this was a totally new package of Aquafresh, bought just for me, for my trip, and they threw it away! I felt horrible, terrible. That was money, that was mine, that was... in the garbage can. I could've killed somebody. I swear, if I weren't so anxious... And my arms, which had calmed down as I had? (My body has this neat history of having actual, legitimate physical problems crop up when I am uncomfortable with something. Like, I would be panicky-nervous about a class before school and I would throw up, thus ensuring I couldn't go to school for 24 hours.)
But back to my arms. Yeah, they started acting up again. Just like that. A tube of toothpaste, a theoretically "...entirely random, I promise. A lot of people think it isn't true, but the system really does just select random people..." search, and I was almost back to full-blown agony. And I still had to repack my carry-on ! Then, of course, as we were looking for my departure gate, this announcement comes on both the speakers and the TV screens that we don't pay attention to. Then we realize that it mentions my flight number and includes the words 'about to depart without you'. My dad and I looked at the nearest screen.
Yep, that's my last name, but... "Victor", it said. My first impression was more or less, I hate it when my name has too many characters. as my whole eighth grade year my name in teh school system was Victor. My second impression was more along the lines of oh my god no way.
There are four and a half more pages that I wrote earlier this afternoon, and I'll post that tommorrow or the day after, but I'm burning time and, frankly, sick of transcribing things from paper to screen right now. I mean, I already wrote this once today! And, yeah, okay, I figured this point made a nice cliffhanger.
If your nervous, however, I suggest you go back and read the first sentence.
I obviously made it here.
But thanks for the concern.
Ja na!
