Fight or Flight
Unease
“So what do you mean!?” She asks as soon as I hit the answer button on my phone, before I have a chance to say hello.
“You said ‘I just want to run away.’ I’m saying, let’s do it.” I answer into the receiver.
“Like seriously!? You want to?” she doesn’t sound sure as to whether or not she wants to believe me.
Even though it’s only like 6:30, it’s been over an hour since she texted me the idea, and, it’s like, even though running away is supposed to be a rush decision, something done in desperation and haste, I’ve kind of got it all planned out already. I’ve thought that how, even if we get caught it would just mean repeating a semester of classes; I’ve thought about the severity of leaving all of my family and friends, and the depressing prospect of how easy it would be. I’ve thought about the daily panic attacks and my inability to cope. I guess I’m just trying to say: I’ve thought it out.
“Yea.” I say. “Seriously.”
There’s a pause.
When I was thinking about it, I thought about her maybe not wanting to come. It was like having your friend cancel on going to a concert; are you still going to go?
Yea, I’m still going, even if it’s by myself. Forgetting the idea seems like the stupid kind of thinking that makes me so out of place in the first place. It’s the behavior of a beaten pup, if I’m going to learn to stand up for anything, I’ve got to learn to stand by myself.
“I’m going to need the night to think.” She says gravely.
“Okay.” I say, “but don’t think too much about it! You’ll take all of the stupid teenager out of it.” I say and fake laugh,
I’m such a fucking hypocrite.
“Yeah!” She says back and laughs a little, “I’ll talk to you tomorrow.” I hear as she clicks the phone off.
I know I shouldn’t, and it’s weird, but I can’t help but think how different it would have gone if I were her dick boyfriend. She would have gladly followed me onto a greyhound bus and into a 1 star motel room, knowing that I’d probably beat the shit out of her after the sense of adventure ran out. As the dependable friend I’ve seen it before, and as the dependable friend she needs the night to think.
I lay down on my bed and toss my phone across the room, onto a pile of clothes heaped in the corner. I can’t tell if they’re clean or dirty from here. I don’t want to think about this, I don’t want to make plans, or think about how realistic it actually is; I need it to be like Disneyland, I need dreamlike, I need fantastic. But at the same time I don’t want to face the homework pile in my closet, one of the things I plan to run away from. The voice in my head says ‘picky picky, you can’t always get what you want.’
For reference, that’s about as nice as my self analyzing thoughts get.
Like a superhero there to save me, I hear a knock on the door, I hear a cry from my mom, “Dinner!” Following the orders I march into the dining room, get myself a glass of water, and sit at my usual seat.
On the table is a bowl of salad, a few bottles of dressing, and a huge bowl of spaghetti and meatballs. I grab some salad and spaghetti, then lightly drizzle the salad with Italian dressing. I wait for everyone else to dig in before I fork salad into my mouth.
“Eating in order again are we?” My dad says and laughs to himself, he shakes his head a little and turns back to his food. He does this every time I try to eat.
See, I’ve got this thing about eating, where I just eat everything in order. I have to finish all of something before I move on to something else. My mom calls it an ‘eating disorder tendency’ because google told her that’s what it is.
I finish my salad and fork out the meatballs from the spaghetti.
My mom, who’s sitting next to me, she has problems with the volume of her eating. Even closed, her mouth makes these weird noises that kind of annoy me, and kind of make me a little nauseas if I’m trying to eat, like I am. So I eat fast, and my dad points that out every dinner as well.
I move on to the spaghetti.
My dad starts to talk about the gas prices, how he can’t believe they rose another 20 cents in 5 minutes or something, how those “bastards” in the middle east are really taking advantage of all the “good hard working Americans.”
It seems like “good hard working Americans” always means manual labor. I’ve never heard a scientist called that, or an actor or an artist. The “Good hard working American” is always off somewhere digging a ditch or on construction.
I shovel in the last of my food and stand up as I try not to point out what’s wrong with what my father just said. My mom makes this really loud snort as she swallows, her mouth is closed and she assumes it was inaudible.
“Thanks for dinner.” I say like I do every night as I take my plate to the sink.
“Done already?” My dad asks like he does every night. I don’t answer.
It’s not like I hate my parents, or that I’m bitter or resentful towards them, they’re just getting annoying. Like as soon as they lost the godlike status they had when I was a little kid I really lost a lot of respect for them. I love them, it’s just that I seem to love them more from a distance. To be perfectly honest I’m feeling like that towards more and more people these days, but I guess I just expect more from my parents or something.
When I get back to my room of course I think about Delilah again, of running away, of the constantly growing pile of papers in the corner of my room. It’s impossible not to. I can’t not think about the bag I’d bring or the clothes I’d pack in it, and I can’t not picture her smiling face, her crying face.
My mom always says she’s concerned about how much I sleep, that it’s not healthy. I mentioned it to my friends once, to Delilah even, but they all just said sleep is healthy, that I should sleep as much as I can or some shit. It’s easier to sweet any implications under the rug, The thing is, it’s hard to not sleep, I feel like I have to. Being in high school is supposed to mean getting 4-5 hours of sleep a night, but I’m averaging 11-12. If I don’t I keep thinking, and I don’t like what my brain tells me, it’s scary.
I walk out to the kitchen and grab a few Tylenol PMs from the cupboard, I make eye contact with my mom whose still eating; I go back to my room and lay down, dry swallowing the pills as I go.
For the record, I hate going to bed this way. Just not as much as I hate the prospects of staying up. The sleeping agent starts to kick in after 10 minutes or so, but it’s not enough to actually knock me out. It’s only supposed to help, which it does, just not enough. What do I expect from Acetominophrin + Diphenhydramine? Or if the brand names suit you better, Tylenol + Benadryl, either way.
With the lights off, the stereo just barely playing music loud enough to hear, it shouldn’t be a challenge to sleep, but it is. The music’s what I use to make my brain shut up, that or TV. All I have to do is focus on the words or lyrics, focus on whatever songwriter’s angst and pain instead of my own, focus on whatever scriptwriters stupid joke. Then when the 4 or 5 Tylenol Pm I popped start to kick in my head will slow down a little more, but the problem is that it’s only my head that slows down. They help my head calm down enough that sleeping should be okay, but my arms and legs get the jitters. It’s like I can make my head shut down, it’s more then ready, but my muscles haven’t made their movement quota for the day. They’re all jitters and energy.
So I toss, and I turn, and I toss some more. I stare at my ceiling, I stare at the wall, at the inside of my eyelids, I’m never sure how long it takes me to fall asleep, because checking the clock is just another thing to keep me awake, but eventually, some time before a sane bed time, everything slows down enough for me to slip out of consciousness.
“You said ‘I just want to run away.’ I’m saying, let’s do it.” I answer into the receiver.
“Like seriously!? You want to?” she doesn’t sound sure as to whether or not she wants to believe me.
Even though it’s only like 6:30, it’s been over an hour since she texted me the idea, and, it’s like, even though running away is supposed to be a rush decision, something done in desperation and haste, I’ve kind of got it all planned out already. I’ve thought that how, even if we get caught it would just mean repeating a semester of classes; I’ve thought about the severity of leaving all of my family and friends, and the depressing prospect of how easy it would be. I’ve thought about the daily panic attacks and my inability to cope. I guess I’m just trying to say: I’ve thought it out.
“Yea.” I say. “Seriously.”
There’s a pause.
When I was thinking about it, I thought about her maybe not wanting to come. It was like having your friend cancel on going to a concert; are you still going to go?
Yea, I’m still going, even if it’s by myself. Forgetting the idea seems like the stupid kind of thinking that makes me so out of place in the first place. It’s the behavior of a beaten pup, if I’m going to learn to stand up for anything, I’ve got to learn to stand by myself.
“I’m going to need the night to think.” She says gravely.
“Okay.” I say, “but don’t think too much about it! You’ll take all of the stupid teenager out of it.” I say and fake laugh,
I’m such a fucking hypocrite.
“Yeah!” She says back and laughs a little, “I’ll talk to you tomorrow.” I hear as she clicks the phone off.
I know I shouldn’t, and it’s weird, but I can’t help but think how different it would have gone if I were her dick boyfriend. She would have gladly followed me onto a greyhound bus and into a 1 star motel room, knowing that I’d probably beat the shit out of her after the sense of adventure ran out. As the dependable friend I’ve seen it before, and as the dependable friend she needs the night to think.
I lay down on my bed and toss my phone across the room, onto a pile of clothes heaped in the corner. I can’t tell if they’re clean or dirty from here. I don’t want to think about this, I don’t want to make plans, or think about how realistic it actually is; I need it to be like Disneyland, I need dreamlike, I need fantastic. But at the same time I don’t want to face the homework pile in my closet, one of the things I plan to run away from. The voice in my head says ‘picky picky, you can’t always get what you want.’
For reference, that’s about as nice as my self analyzing thoughts get.
Like a superhero there to save me, I hear a knock on the door, I hear a cry from my mom, “Dinner!” Following the orders I march into the dining room, get myself a glass of water, and sit at my usual seat.
On the table is a bowl of salad, a few bottles of dressing, and a huge bowl of spaghetti and meatballs. I grab some salad and spaghetti, then lightly drizzle the salad with Italian dressing. I wait for everyone else to dig in before I fork salad into my mouth.
“Eating in order again are we?” My dad says and laughs to himself, he shakes his head a little and turns back to his food. He does this every time I try to eat.
See, I’ve got this thing about eating, where I just eat everything in order. I have to finish all of something before I move on to something else. My mom calls it an ‘eating disorder tendency’ because google told her that’s what it is.
I finish my salad and fork out the meatballs from the spaghetti.
My mom, who’s sitting next to me, she has problems with the volume of her eating. Even closed, her mouth makes these weird noises that kind of annoy me, and kind of make me a little nauseas if I’m trying to eat, like I am. So I eat fast, and my dad points that out every dinner as well.
I move on to the spaghetti.
My dad starts to talk about the gas prices, how he can’t believe they rose another 20 cents in 5 minutes or something, how those “bastards” in the middle east are really taking advantage of all the “good hard working Americans.”
It seems like “good hard working Americans” always means manual labor. I’ve never heard a scientist called that, or an actor or an artist. The “Good hard working American” is always off somewhere digging a ditch or on construction.
I shovel in the last of my food and stand up as I try not to point out what’s wrong with what my father just said. My mom makes this really loud snort as she swallows, her mouth is closed and she assumes it was inaudible.
“Thanks for dinner.” I say like I do every night as I take my plate to the sink.
“Done already?” My dad asks like he does every night. I don’t answer.
It’s not like I hate my parents, or that I’m bitter or resentful towards them, they’re just getting annoying. Like as soon as they lost the godlike status they had when I was a little kid I really lost a lot of respect for them. I love them, it’s just that I seem to love them more from a distance. To be perfectly honest I’m feeling like that towards more and more people these days, but I guess I just expect more from my parents or something.
When I get back to my room of course I think about Delilah again, of running away, of the constantly growing pile of papers in the corner of my room. It’s impossible not to. I can’t not think about the bag I’d bring or the clothes I’d pack in it, and I can’t not picture her smiling face, her crying face.
My mom always says she’s concerned about how much I sleep, that it’s not healthy. I mentioned it to my friends once, to Delilah even, but they all just said sleep is healthy, that I should sleep as much as I can or some shit. It’s easier to sweet any implications under the rug, The thing is, it’s hard to not sleep, I feel like I have to. Being in high school is supposed to mean getting 4-5 hours of sleep a night, but I’m averaging 11-12. If I don’t I keep thinking, and I don’t like what my brain tells me, it’s scary.
I walk out to the kitchen and grab a few Tylenol PMs from the cupboard, I make eye contact with my mom whose still eating; I go back to my room and lay down, dry swallowing the pills as I go.
For the record, I hate going to bed this way. Just not as much as I hate the prospects of staying up. The sleeping agent starts to kick in after 10 minutes or so, but it’s not enough to actually knock me out. It’s only supposed to help, which it does, just not enough. What do I expect from Acetominophrin + Diphenhydramine? Or if the brand names suit you better, Tylenol + Benadryl, either way.
With the lights off, the stereo just barely playing music loud enough to hear, it shouldn’t be a challenge to sleep, but it is. The music’s what I use to make my brain shut up, that or TV. All I have to do is focus on the words or lyrics, focus on whatever songwriter’s angst and pain instead of my own, focus on whatever scriptwriters stupid joke. Then when the 4 or 5 Tylenol Pm I popped start to kick in my head will slow down a little more, but the problem is that it’s only my head that slows down. They help my head calm down enough that sleeping should be okay, but my arms and legs get the jitters. It’s like I can make my head shut down, it’s more then ready, but my muscles haven’t made their movement quota for the day. They’re all jitters and energy.
So I toss, and I turn, and I toss some more. I stare at my ceiling, I stare at the wall, at the inside of my eyelids, I’m never sure how long it takes me to fall asleep, because checking the clock is just another thing to keep me awake, but eventually, some time before a sane bed time, everything slows down enough for me to slip out of consciousness.