I'm sorry to the people I lashed out at today. I don't know what's going on in my head, but it'll be better once I've gone to Mexico and come back. Then I'll be able to treat you the way you deserve.
This last month before I leave is going to be hard for all of you. I don't say it'll be hard for me, because it really won't... I'm going to work as much as I can, make as much money as I can to make up for my absence, and then go. But all I can tell you is I really hope I don't hurt any of you before I get this unpredictable, capricious creature in my head under control. If I do, if I have, god am I sorry. I will make it up to you.
No one, least of all you, my friends, my dear ones, deserves to be treated the way I can treat people when I lose control. I'm very sorry.
I had such an awful nightmare last night... my dreams are getting worse and worse.
I was floating, in dark water, no stars, no land, just floating in the water that was warm, and I was alone. I was so stressed--the way I have been--about money, trying to figure out how not to crash and burn, how not to fuck this up like everything else, how I'm going to pay the next two months' rent, how I'm going to buy food, how I'm going to pay bills, how I'm going to fix the window that broke yesterday... all the grown-up things on my head and trying to be grown-up about it. I was floating in the water on my back, thinking about these things, and I started to cry, not sobbing, just quietly, angrily, and when I did, I began to sink, sinking feet-first into the water. There was light below me, and when I stopped falling I was in the street outside my apartment, and I was looking in my wallet at the ten bucks I got at work last night. And people I knew, people from school who I just barely know, came up and asked for money, and I gave it to them, smiling, "Of course, of course, I don't care, don't worry about it, you can have it."
Then I looked down in my wallet that was empty, and I put it away and I was going to go inside and go to bed, but then the sun started to rise, and I realized I'd fucked up, I'd been up all night.
I looked up at the sun and it was warm, on my face, too bright to look at, and I closed my eyes and let it shine red through my eyelids, and I almost felt relaxed, I could feel every muscle of my body, standing there. You never notice how many muscles it takes just to stand still until you really try... and I could feel each and every one, and some of them ached, and I was glad of the pain because it meant I was still in there, still attached to my body, as crazy as my mind felt right then. I could feel the wind on my ankles and between my fingers, and I could smell that cold smell that mornings have, like snow. And then I tasted blood.
I looked down at my hands as the sun came up and covered me in light, and I touched my lip and there was blood on my fingers. So red—nothing’s redder than blood in the morning sun. And I could feel a pain in my mouth, and I searched around with my tongue for the source of the blood, and then there was a sharp pain, and one of my back teeth fell out into my hand. It was so small, like a child’s tooth, and I was so scared, because I knew I’d fucked up again by not going to the dentist in two years, and now I was losing the only teeth I’d ever have. I looked at the tooth in the light and it was translucent and pink with the blood, like a lump of glass. I spit out the blood and tried to keep the tooth in my hand as I climbed the stairs, but I lost it. When I got to the top it was gone, and that squishy place in your mouth when you lose a tooth was just there, and the taste of blood.
Nothing chases me in dreams anymore. There's hardly any people at all in my dreams. Just me... falling short. Not coming through. Not having what it takes. I guess that's how you know you've grown up, huh. When your nightmares aren't about monsters anymore, just about failure.Shit, I'm sorry to burden you all with this mess. This is why I hate these things. Angsty bullshit I'll get over tomorrow, and you have to hear it. And yet... I'm still gonna push that "publish" button. Someday I'll learn.
