North Face: the official sponsor of Boston College.

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I’m horrible, horrible, and I hate when I do this, because it was the worst part of last year, when I would lose my cool at the most inexplicable times and shout nonsensical things like “I AM NOT ENOUGH” and “THIS IS ALL I DO.” I had such an A+ day today, with invitations and tickets and physical activity and progress, and I wanted to call and say, “Guess what an A+ day I had today?” Instead, the second she picked up the phone I soured. I neglected to mention my original news, reverted to one word answers like she was the one who had called me at a ridiculous time, and hung up. The only thing said worth remembering in the five minutes was this:

“Are you mad at me because I don’t have the answers?”

One hundred percent. I’m mad because I always feel like I can’t tell people real things anymore. I can’t say, Ahhh I’m so excited I can hardly sleep because my article will be out in the morning!! or Last night I lay in bed taking pictures of my feet and realized that no one would ever find that cute or This number right here proves how smart I am, and I look at it everyday like it’s some kind of achievement or I think I have a cyst but I’m pretending that I’m pregnant. I don’t know whose fault it is that I can’t open up anymore. And by I don’t know whose fault it is, I mean clearly it is my own fault. I mean the reason I keep unleashing these unfair insinuations of your fault your fault your fault on my mother is that she’s the only one I know will cry afterwards. I mean I’m getting desperate enough for some kind of reciprocation of feeling that I’ll draw tears if I have to.

I mean that the next time we talk, I am going to pretend like you haven’t read this, and you’re going to do the same, and we’re going to continue with the “fine good great seriously” way of living. And so having established that:

I am sad, and I don’t know how to say so.

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I write for The Heights now, which was a very big step for me because, as I’ve mentioned before, I do not like being criticized. Fortunately, I haven’t been, and it’s going well. A good thing, too, since I’m in the midst of a crisis and I get between-class emails from my dad that really flip my mood.

You are really good at this article writing. It was interesting, it included a lot of quotes from people, and you used the word “counterintuitive.” It doesn’t get much better than that! Congratulations!

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It’s really interesting the way everyone clams up about it, like every person I’ve ever been in contact with has come to an agreement that this? Is not something we are going to talk about. Don’t encourage her. It’s perfectly all right for you to go on at length about your concerns, to tell me every little detail of every little exploit because it’s action, it’s drama, it’s happening. But everyone’s greatest fear is stagnancy, a reminder that not all things move forward. It sure is awkward for those two minutes out of the year that I actually pluck up the courage to address an issue that picks away at my brain all day, every day, isn’t it? The eyes dart away as though to say, “Stop. It’s cruel of you to do this to me. This. Isn’t. Fair.”

Even Maxine wouldn’t let me dwell on it. “Well, it will happen.” Now let’s talk about your ten-year plan.

Okay. I see myself in a job. In a city. With too much to give and no one appropriate to receive it. Everyone is being taken away. I see myself collecting things, arranging them on shelves. Crying into ceramic things. I see myself collecting more things, and I keep them all to myself, in all of my pockets because no one ever comes over to see them. No one ever asks me where I got them from, where this came from, these things I hold. Sometimes I see myself dead but I don’t know how I got there. The explanation is tucked away under a million other things that no one’s tried to barter for. I will give you this for that.

THERE ARE THINGS I NEED TO TALK ABOUT WITH YOU. THERE ARE HOURS AND HOURS AND DAYS AND YEARS OF TALKING I NEED TO DO.

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I’ve been trying to get myself into so many things, so many new hobbies I’m just dying to wrap my fists around and press them into my fingerprints, that I have achieved approximately nothing. My hands just seem to dip into the bowl and come out dry. It is the reason I do not read magazines. What would I read? And if I do not read magazines, then what would I write? What could I tell the brides who already possess my most desperate wish, the tweens concerned with things that never concerned me, the interior designers who actually own homes, the parents and their children, the musicians who don’t want to hear that I been on a three-year between-musics hiatus, the foodies, the romantics, the politicos, the meatheads, the connoisseurs of anything and everything? I’ve defied being defined for so long that I can relate to everyone on one level and nobody on another.

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“Hmm… these are from the 5 for $25?”

“Yeah, that table.”

“Okay, one of them is in the wrong spot…. Yep, it’s this one. So, you’ll have to pick another.” (Looking at Addie) “Do you want her to do it, or…?”

“…No, thanks. I’ll get it.” (To Addie) “She asked if I wanted you to pick out my underwear.”

“I heard that. She thinks I’m your girlfriend.”

“Probably because I said really loud that you’re my girlfriend. Except she didn’t get the sarcasm.”

“But how would she know? She’s been behind that counter, she hasn’t seen me over here at all.”

“So she just thinks it’s me? She just assumes that I’m here with my girlfriend?! I told you, there’s something about me!”

–

“I think I like this watch. Do you like it?”

“I like it. It’s like mine. We’ve got twin watches.”

“Oh, cool, it is like yours.”

“You should see if they could get that watch’s face with this watch’s band.”

“Yeah. Excuse me? I was wondering, is there some way to take this black band but use that smaller face…?”

(Face of disgust) “No. These are two separate watches.”

“Oh. Okay. Well… this one looks good, right?”

“It’s nice, I like it.”

“Okay, I’ll take this one.”

(Tossing bag in my direction, with unnecessary disdain) “There you go. Have a nice day, ladies.”

“…”

“…”

“…Did she just think we’re gay?”

“What does she mean she can’t change the band? That’s half the point of a watch bench, to put a new band on an old watch. Was she lying? Was that homophobia?”

“God, I need to stop hanging around with you.”

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