8:17 p.m. - December 06, 2001
alliteration
Ms. M. says she can see me through the characters I write. She says they're multidimensional.
Well, that's good, I guess. It's good to know that I'm multidimensional. In case I'd forgotten. In case I'd forgotten that's something I want more than anything... for people to notice my many faces. facets, does that work, with the multifaceted? Anyway, that made me happy. Even if much of what she says seems to fly out of nowhere, and much of it, after trying to decipher it, I just dismiss as being, well, crap... her opinion means something. I don't have to like her writing to be honored that she likes mine.

Jason is moving back to California. Despite myself, I'll miss the wacko vegan hippie skateboarder. And Mike is moving back to Wisconsin. Despite myself, I'll miss his perverted little mind and his exultations about the Packers. It's the same thing when Rick left to be road rep; he used to obsessively rearrange the office and pour water on people's chairs and whoopee cushions, but when he left, everything seemed empty.

It's been three months since I've been off Paxil. I disregarded everyone's advice who wrote to me and told me to get back on it. I would say 'nyah nyah nah nyah nyah nyah,' but in the tiny little sick times of my life I wonder how much better I would feel were I still on it. I can still remember those first few weeks I tried, July, I think, I was off. I remember going to Rachel's and watching a movie with her and Karolina, and trying to eat pasta, with my fingers, out of a bowl, while Karolina gave me a back massage, and it wasn't that I felt anxious, not there with two of my friends and a bathroom right there, but just.. sick. My stomach turned and turned and my head was fuzzy. I kept shoveling in the pasta to keep my mind off of it. The next day, I took a pill. And didn't stop again til September. In September I suffered worse. It wasn't just nausea, it was nausea in school, stress of college apps, and the social scene was big then, and I was too scared to go anywhere.
I don't know when it stopped, I honestly don't remember. Sometime around Halloween, I think. And since then I've felt normal, except for a persisting virus taking my appetite. If only I could get rid of all the pain this way. A few weeks of perseverance. Then bliss.
Could I have listened to myself writing now, back in my freshman year, calm and together and healthy like this, I would have been so relieved I would have cried. There's a letter I wrote to my future self that year that I was going to put in a time capsule and never did. When I find it, I'll put it up here. I remember my resolutions. 'I resolve not to feel anxious in public.' 'I resolve to be happy.' So simple. I haven't changed so much.
The truth is, nobody really ever stops wanting. My freshman self wanting to stop the pain; and now, my senior self wanting to find something exhilarating to break the drone. It's of the same intensity. Wanting wanting wanting. Each time I don't know whether I will. So far I have. Except the exhilaration. That's the next step.

Anything specific I want, and I do, has to wait, since the sense is starting to stop. s-s-s-s. alliteration. fuck me.

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