You Can't Wake, I Can't Sleep

I am writing from inside a panic attack, a dark room with no windows.
My heart is beating fast and my breaths are coming shallow and I have this strange ache I get in between my shoulder blades, right where invisible knives are stabbed in childhood games. X marks the spot.

Again, envisioning that freaking scene from the freaking Bell Jar, the figs drying up and falling off the tree, each representing a possible future, while Esther takes too long to decide.

I feel I have made no personal growth or progress since I was sixteen or possibly seventeen. I have gained no deeper level of emotional maturity or ability to cope with anything life throws at me.

I can't explain it and my prior therapist couldn't explain it- this stopping. Why everything stopped there and I'm still frozen in place.

"I'm afraid I will never change..."

Everything is swirling in my head like a kaleidoscope, everything is maybe I should and maybe I shouldn't and maybe I should just go back to art school and yes I know writing is my calling so isn't filmmaking just another detour? How many detours do I take before I realize writing is my thing when I already know it?

The future looms before me like a giant open mouth, a shark's mouth or a wolf's, with teeth glistening with spit, waiting to devour me.

I close my eyes and that's all I can see.

Maybe I should go back to therapy. I tried to do things on my own and all I did was waste ten years. But that's a last resort. What if I use up my last resort and I'm still completely dysfunctional?

***

I took a stupid nap and slept through seeing Summer after being up with insomnia all night :(
I SUCK! I'm sorry.

Tomorrow night, we will be discussing my screenplay in class so I hope that goes well because I changed so much stuff and whatever.

***

Okay because I can't do it anymore, let's play decide my life.

Should I go back to art school?
Should I go back to therapy?
Should I just concentrate on getting a job/writing/MOVING OUT?
Should I return to other school if they'll have me and do film?
Should I do English, emphasis on creative writing?

***

I hope my Mississippi friends and their families are okay. I hope Angela's animals are okay. Y'all are in my prayers even though you're probably not reading this.

I want a relationship with a future.

I want wedding bells ringing faintly off in the not too far but not too close distance.

I don't want to build something else that's just gonna inevitably self-destruct because of distance or some other factor.

I'm just tired of wasting time on things that aren't gonna work and saying it was a beautiful learning experience.

Tired of hiding behind things I know won't work out, so I don't have to ever face something that might.

limbs splayed delicate
across the tracks
and i know i’ll be the train
only staring at the sun
while i’m down here on my back
but i know it’s gonna rain
and cries for help are futile
when there’s no one left to blame
and the sun is dancing in my hair
but i can only taste the rain
oh i know i’ll be the train

Okay in last night's rerun when Seth and Ryan are walking past all these happy couples on Valentine's Day and Seth turns to Ryan and says "Look at all these people, no trauma, no drama, no misery, just happy couples. Are we ever gonna have that?" And Ryan's like "Nope".

***

First of all, Seth totally *meant* were he and Ryan ever gonna have that with one another cuz it sooo sounded like that!!

Second of all, I'm talking to several friends right now and that's exactly how I feel, like everything's so fucked and I'll never be a happy, normal person in a happy, normal relationship and i DO want that.

Even drama queens can yearn for simplicity and peace, goddammit.