I Don't Want to Be Crazy (4 page)

Move-in day is like a sorority party.
Rebecca’s friends and I are living in a suite.
Rebecca and Rachel and Amanda and Tara are in doubles,
Jennifer and I are in singles.
There is so much laughing
and loud music,
and running from room to room
to borrow a hammer or some tacks.

I love that I have my own room,
that I can do whatever I want to these walls.
I am committed to making this space mine.
I hang a giant tie-dyed tapestry over the back wall.
It’s too bright, but I don’t care.
My dad got me a futon and a rug
and this space looks good,
looks like me,
and I am the only one with a key.

Almost instantly the girls and I
establish ourselves as a unit—
we even call ourselves a herd.
We plan our days around each other,
meet for lunch,
walk to dinner at the same time,
go to the student center for coffee
late at night.

I think the best part
is when we sit together doing homework.
We don’t need to talk.
It’s just nice to be around people.

My anxiety is better,
but it’s not great.
I’ve been taking Klonopin for almost a year
and my life has changed so much.
I have fewer panic attacks than freshman year,
but they are still there—
waiting for me
in the usual places.

The dining hall is still the worst.
The second I walk in the door
and swipe my ID,
a switch goes off in my mind.

As I walk around to find something to eat
or someone to sit with,
it feels like I am underwater.
My limbs are heavy.
Sounds are muffled.

This swimming feeling,
combined with the dim light of the dining hall,
makes me feel faint.
The thought of passing out
makes me start to panic,
makes me wonder if I have had enough to drink
or if I have eaten enough
so my body can function.

I imagine being on line to get some pasta,
my eyes rolling back in my head.
I can see myself passing out,
hitting the dirty tile floor with a thud
and waking up with a crowd of people standing above me,
thinking I am such a freak.

One by one the girls all learn
about my anxiety.

I don’t need to come out and tell them—
all they need is to be in the right place
at the wrong time
and see it happen.

When Tara finds out
she says that it explains a lot—
that freshman year
I was distant
with everyone except Rebecca.
She would always see us
sitting in the dark, smoking,
writing in our journals.
She says that my unapproachability
and independence from the group
looked like maturity.
But now she says she understands
that I was that way
because I didn’t work well in groups.
She says that now
she tries to get me one on one—
that I am better that way,
more focused.
It means so much to me
that she would go out of her way
to see me alone,
so she can get the best of me.

I have a dream
that I am walking in the woods
and I find a stone temple
with crumbling white pillars.

I am standing inside eating tuna fish
and realize there are tiny bones in it.
I stand over a basin
and start pulling wads of dry tuna fish
out of my mouth.
It is endless.
No matter how much tuna I scoop out
there is always more.

Nate and I talk,
but I am usually the one to call.
I hate that he does that,
but I have learned that I have two choices:
either accept it
or not be friends with him.

I stare at the phone,
start to dial,
and hang up.
I do this over and over.
I don’t want to be the one to break first.
I don’t want to be the one who needs him.
It makes me feel like he doesn’t care—
that I am not as important to him
as he says I am.
But I always break.
I always call.
And when I do,
I forget
how hard it was to pick up the phone
when I hear his voice—
hear him say my name.

When we talk,
he likes to hear about school
and all the projects I am working on
and how well I am doing.
I think he looks up to me—
with my focus
and direction—
because he doesn’t have that.

At lunch Ann sits down with me
and I am surprised
at how easy the conversation is.
She says how intimidated she was
by me and Rebecca that weekend at Jennifer’s.
She says there was an impenetrable vibe about us,
but sitting here with me now,
she doesn’t feel it.

It’s weird to hear this again—
to hear how I was perceived
by people before they got to know me.
Some of the girls thought I was a bitch—
aloof, distant—
but now they see the truth.

The conversation shifts to guys
and I tell Ann
that Sean and I hooked up
a few weeks ago and she laughs.
She hooked up with him
at the very beginning of freshman year.
There is something about knowing this
that breaks a wall between us.

Just before Halloween,
Rebecca and I are at a party in town.
When things quiet down,
a few of us move upstairs
to another kid’s apartment.
His name is Jeff
and I’ve never seen him before.
I would have remembered him.

When I bend down to look at his books,
he says Henry Miller is his favorite.
I smile and tell him mine is Anaïs Nin.
Henry Miller and Anaïs Nin were lovers.
We talk for a while about them.
I like the way this is starting—
with Henry and Anaïs.

I have the dream again,
this time with taffy.
I don’t know where I am,
but it’s like I’m a magician
pulling multicolored scarves out of my mouth
and the taffy won’t stop coming.

Ann and I go to a party in town.
She drives us in her SUV
and seeing her sitting behind the wheel
makes her look even more petite.

The party is wall-to-wall people,
and even though it’s cool outside
the apartment is warm and stuffy.
We find seats and watch people shuffle by
to find a drink or a friend.

Ann takes off her jacket
and then tugs at her turtleneck,
tries to give herself some air.
She pulls her blond hair off her neck
into a ponytail.
She looks uncomfortable,
but I figure it’s because of the heat.

Some people I kind of know come by
and Ann barely says a word.
It’s like she’s not here.
Her green eyes grow wide
as she sinks lower and lower into the couch.

I lean over and ask if she’s all right.
She shakes her head no.
Without a word she stands up and puts on her jacket.
She asks if I’ll be able to find a ride home,
and when I say yes, she says she has to leave.
I tell her to wait, but she says she’ll be okay.
She leaves before I can say anything else.
She doesn’t look back.

I can’t believe that I just watched
someone else have a panic attack.

Now I see Jeff on campus all the time.
Every time I turn around, there he is—
sitting on the green,
getting coffee at the student center,
walking through the English department.
He is like a ghost
who has materialized just for me.

The first time I go to Jeff’s alone,
I stand at the door to his apartment, wait
to catch my breath
before I ring the bell
because I was too scared
to take the rickety elevator.

We talk for a long time.
It is one of those conversations
that should be awkward
but isn’t,
and when we kiss
it is perfect—
except for the shaking.
It starts in my stomach
and goes to my legs
and teeth.
I shouldn’t be cold.
Jeff is next to me,
on top of me,
under me.

Later, in bed, I peer over his head,
watch his cat claw at old issues of the
Times
and then crawl into bed
over our legs.

And when I crawl
out of bed
to sleep on the floor
because he is a violent dreamer,
the cat takes my place beside him.

As I smoke
and sit with bare knees pressed to my chest,
the cat glares
between my legs,
and I wonder
if I didn’t have the braids
would Jeff have ever noticed me?

As Ann and I get closer
to the dining hall for dinner,
I know I can’t do it.
I can’t go in.
I had a panic attack in Lit class in the afternoon
and I am tired.
My body can’t take another one.
I can’t go in there
with all that noise,
and the sounds of forks banging against plates,
and the hum of people,
and those dim lights.

Ann and I sit outside for a while.
She knows what it’s like
and tries to calm me down.
She puts her hand on my back and rubs,
but I can’t do it.
I feel weak for not being able to go in
and do something so simple, so normal,
but I am tired
and I just want to go home.

Since the night I saw her have a panic attack
things have been different.
She comes to me,
red-faced and crying,
to help her calm down.
I reassure her
that she’s going to be okay,
that she’s not going to die,
I feel her forehead, tell her she’s cool,
and smooth down her fine blond hair.

She does the same for me.
She becomes the voice of reason
when there is none.
When I feel myself on the edge
and I don’t know what else to do,
I call her.

We do for each other
what we cannot do for ourselves.
When it is happening we are in another place
where the rules of reason do not apply.
We need a voice from the outside
because our own voices cannot be trusted.

We met too late,
or maybe too early.
Jeff’s graduating
at the end of this semester.

There are so many things about him
that scare me,
but I cannot lose another chance to fear—
fear of being vulnerable,
fear of being hurt—
when all this time I’ve been hurting myself.
Putting the potential for damage
into someone else’s hands is scary.
I have to have control,
even if it is the power to self-destruct.

Jeff scares me because he is smart,
because maybe I won’t understand
or maybe because he’ll make me stand up taller.
I’m scared of what will happen
when he leaves in two months,
and it’s only been a week and a day.

I want things so bad
that I force them,
push them until they tear.

Snow again.
Every time the seasons change
I think about the year before.
I wonder how I felt
and if I thought the snow was as beautiful
as it is right now.

I have the dream again,
this time with glass.
I am standing near an ice sculpture
that is starting to melt.
My mouth is filled with glass
and I am bleeding and drooling all over myself.
I keep spitting out tiny shards,
but it is never enough.

Jeff and I are going to a play
at a tiny theater in town.
I’ve bought a bottle of wine
for afterwards.
When I get to his apartment to meet him,
he isn’t there.
I call him over and over
from a pay phone outside.
It is raining and this feels like Jason.
For every minute I wait,
my anger builds.
For every time the bottle of wine clangs
against the stuff in my bag,
I hate him.

He finally comes downstairs,
apologizes,
says he was watching
Seinfeld
at his neighbor’s,
and we walk to the play in silence.

The play is bizarre
and there are dead baby dolls
hanging from the ceiling.

Back at his apartment,
before I have a chance
to open the wine,
he tells me it’d be better
if we didn’t see each other
since he’s graduating
and then traveling in Europe.
He says it’s only going to get harder.
But I don’t feel any better.
It doesn’t feel any easier.
And I can’t believe
that it is happening again—
that I have found something good
only to have it taken away.

We have an awkward good-bye hug
as I wait for Rachel and Rebecca to pick me up.
He kisses me on the forehead
right between my eyes—
as if I didn’t feel bad enough.

This night was supposed to be fun—
a bottle of wine
and me staying over,
but now I am sitting on a bench
behind the dorms with Rebecca
and I am crying.
There is a pit in my stomach
and I plan to fill it with wine.
Half a bottle later,
I am in my room, cutting my braids out.
I know I am drunk.
I know I am being dramatic,
but it feels good.

In the morning I don’t go to class.
I go to breakfast so late
they are already clearing for lunch.
When I get my cereal,
I see a ghost.

There he is,
in the dining hall,
and I have never seen him here before.
We both smile
and he sits down with me.
He asks how I am
and I tell him about the bottle
meant for us
and the braids.
And it doesn’t hurt to see him
like I thought it would.

I am home for winter break
and I can’t tell if things have gone back to normal,
or if this part of my life is the anomaly.
Things are how they were
just before I left for school last year.
I spend most of my days working at the theater
trying to earn some cash.
I sit in the booth and sell tickets
to rich people who think I’m retarded.
Men hit on me,
say, “You’re such a pretty girl.
Why don’t you smile?”
I’m in a tiny glass booth
making seven dollars an hour.
What do I have to smile about?
Usually I just bare my teeth
like an animal in response.

I try to entertain myself in the booth
so I don’t go crazy.
When it’s quiet
I do crosswords and read.
When it’s busy
and a customer is being rude
and paying with a fifty or a hundred, I
pull out the yellow marker
to see if the bill is real.
It drives men nuts
and makes me laugh.

At home it’s the usual drill.
My parents are constantly on top of me.
They want to know where I’m
going, and when I’ll be back.

I try not to stay out too late
and dodge the same fight we always have
about how it keeps my father up.
When I am out with friends
I constantly check my watch
and feel guilty
that me being out with my friends
affects my parents.
But it also makes me angry.
I am always the first to leave and
none of my friends understand why.

It’s the end of winter break
and I feel sick.
My head is heavy, stuffed with snot,
and my joints ache.
When I tell my parents I am going to Nate’s house,
my mother protests, says I am sick
and shouldn’t be going anywhere,
but I convince my father otherwise.
It’s my last night at home
and I want to see Nate.

When I get to his house, Jason is there
and I wonder if they are as uncomfortable as I am.
The three of us smoke a joint
and I fall asleep on Nate’s couch
as they watch basketball.

The next morning I am worse than before.

I shuffle out of bed to the kitchen
to find some decongestants.

My father is cooking, and the TV is on loud.
I sit down in the dining room.
I don’t have the strength to take the pills.
I brace my elbows on my knees
and hang my head down.

I feel like I am being crushed.
My head is sinking lower and lower
and then everything flips.
I have no sense of up or down, only suspension.
I want to call to my father, but I can’t.
My sister walks through the room,
asks me how I’m feeling,
and all I can do is reach out my hand.
She tries to get me to the living room to lie down,
but we don’t make it.

I wake up on the floor by the front door.
Something wet is on my head
and my father is bent over me,
kissing my face, over and over.

The fire trucks come first,
then the ambulance.
The foyer is filled with people.
I try to tell them I feel better,
but everyone insists I go to the hospital.
The EMTs won’t let me walk to the ambulance.
They have to take me on a stretcher.
Up I go, strapped in,
carried out of my house
with all the neighbors watching.

Back at school,
my therapist and I talk about passing out.
I tell her it is terrifying to be lost
somewhere in between here and there
in the dark nothingness,
to have moments of time
unaccounted for.

Passing out makes me think about death—
about the moment before dying
and how it must feel
to be pulled away from everything you love
and have no control.

I tell her about winter break
and the ambulance and the high fever
and how I spent the day in the hospital,
hooked up to an IV and getting tested for everything.
I tell her it’s not the first time I passed out.
The first time was when I was fifteen.
My sister took me to a concert in the city.

We were up front by the stage, next to the speakers.
The bass was crushing my chest.
I was light-headed and then things began to fade.
The night sky flashed in front of my eyes
and the floor caved in.

My sister’s friend carried me outside
and sat me down in the cool air.
My hands were vibrating.
I asked my sister if she could feel it,
but she couldn’t.
I could see how much it scared her
to not feel what I was feeling.

The next summer it happened again
at an outdoor concert with Abe and Matt.
We were packed in, body to body,
trying to get to the small gate in the fence.
I was overwhelmed by all the people, the noise,
and then things began to fade.
I reached out for Abe,
but before I could say anything,
I fell backwards into the crowd.

I woke up with Abe over me
and I was embarrassed at all the drama.
Medics came rushing into the crowd
and cut a hole open in the fence to get me out.

Later that summer I was in a bar
and I got a bloody nose from the heat.
Once my friends realized what was wrong
they all piled into the bathroom.
They tried to give me advice
on how to make the bleeding stop
and I passed out.

I came to as I was being carried to the street.
When the ambulance came,
they had to take me to the hospital
and call my parents because I was a minor.
The biggest problem I could see was
that I had lied to my parents about where I was
and it was two-thirty in the morning.