I'm writing this as an apology. I don't know if it'll matter, but I'm going to try.

I get the urge for change. Sometimes it's big, sometimes it's small. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and have to write in my journal. Doesn't matter what I write, and usually the entries are small and don't say much except, "I need change." Sometimes I rearrange my room. I move the bed into another corner, I fuss with my computer until I've moved it into a spot. I hardly change things much, but just enough so that when I come home to it, and the mental image that I've had of it for the period of time before the changes I've done turns out to be different, I feel surprised. Sometimes I need that surprise.

Sometimes I go through all my old journals and tell myself I'm looking for something specific, when I really know I just want to see how much I've changed from the person I used to be on the paper.

Sometimes I turn on the television or put on an old cd that makes me feel nostalgic and sad and happy and melancholy all at once and I start cleaning. Throwing out pieces of old crap that I've kept for no good reason except that I'm a packrat. And while I do this I look at them and go, "Aw, I remember when…." and I feel good because I've changed. Because change has happened.

And then there are those times when I feel self-destructive. When I sit in bed and just want to cry. Usually for no real reason. I'm in that mood right now. I want to do nothing but scream in my room, because there's nobody here to stop me. Nobody to come in and go "What the fuck are you doing?" Nobody here to judge, nobody here to "understand." Except now I do have a reason.

Sometimes, in this quest for difference, I feel the need to escape. I felt this way a lot at my house. I would wake up and nobody else would be awake (which was incredibly rare in my home) and I'd walk outside, and the cool air of three in the morning would rub up against me and I would never feel so free in my life. Except that I was chained up to a broken home with people I could barely stand at the best of times. I wanted to run away. Sometimes, I did. My parents have no idea how many times I ran away in the middle of the night, running down the dark, dangerous New Orleans streets from age thirteen to seventeen, fully intent upon never returning and starting over someplace different, and only to give up in the midst of my flight, broken, tired, crying, and hurting. Hating myself and everything I've been through, everything/everyone I've lost. And I'd crawl back into bed, and cry myself asleep, praying to somebody to one day actually get out.

And then I left home for good. I moved out. Got my own apartment. Had my own responsibilities. And it felt like finally, that day had graced my life. Until I started to get that overpowering urge to get away again. And I'd wake up in the middle of the night and take a walk. And formulate ways to leave. To start over. To get change.

I'm slowly coming to the conclusion that maybe, I'll never end up being happy. Maybe I'll never end up in a place where I don't want to run away. Maybe I'll never end up with somebody who I want to stay with even in that place. Somebody who keeps me from escaping through a window, whether open or closed. And this conclusion hurts me so much. Because it's killing the last little shreds of innocence that I've got left. It's killing those last little pieces of threads of thoughts that are optimistic and not plagued with cynicism.

I really don't want to lose them.

Before I left home, while I was living with Kathryn, and many times since, David has offered to let me live with him in Ohio. I don't know how many times I've told him yes, only to chicken out at the last minute. And then he'd offer again when I felt that need to get out, and I'd say yes, and then I'd get scared. And that's what I did again this time. Except now I think he's had enough.

I can't blame him at all. I wouldn't have put up with it the second time. I wouldn't have offered again. Certainly not again and again. But he did. And each time (there've been so many) I've been very adament about following through, but I change my mind just as it becomes a little bit closer to "actually happening." This time, though. This time I really thought it would happen. I told Jackie, I told my family. I was even planning on telling my job tomorrow. But today, no, barely an hour ago, I just realized I couldn't do it. I couldn't go. I don't know why. I do not fucking KNOW WHY.

i sat staring at those two bold words for nearly half an hour just now. the rest of the entry sortof melted away, and nothing was left but them. know why. it feels really important right now, though i can't explain it. but somehow when i saw that and realized it, my feelings of lonliness and sadness went away.

Know why.

I'm sorry for doing this to you again and again, David. And I know that won't make you feel any better about it. But I want you to know that you won't always be alone. Whether I was there or not won't make a difference for you. And me being there wouldn't help fill the void that you thought it would.

I can understand it if you decide you don't want to continue this friendship. God only knows how much I've abused it.

I'm sorry. That's all I can say.

I'm sorry.

IF I SPEAK AT ONE CONSTANT VOLUME
AT ONE CONSTANT PITCH
AT ONE CONSONANT RHYTHM
RIGHT INTO YOUR EAR,
YOU STILL WON'T HEAR, YOU STILL WON'T HEAR

Entry last modified: June 28, 2007 at 8:24 pm.

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