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Let me try again

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Perhaps what I meant to say is something like this.

On September 11, 2001, I tried as hard as I could to sleep late. My snooze alarm was going off for hours (no kidding), the security buzzer on my dorm's door was blaring, and for some reason, my phone was totally ringing off the hook. At that point in my life, I had a policy of not answering the phone when I was asleep (since I was busy, sleeping), but I was getting really tired of all the noise.

The sunlight was glaring through my window and once again I sighed in annoyance at myself because I'd forgotten to pull my shade down when I'd gone to sleep. I'd had stupid, vague nightmares all evening and morning, and my sleep was restless and lousy. My nose was itchy and running with allergies, and I kept rolling over and sniffling, frustrated that I hadn't taken a sinus pill. I was light-headed and that unique kind of tired which closely resembles nausea. I had been having palpitations and deep pains in my chest, right by my heart, and I had made an appointment with the health center to get it checked out (side note - I had scarlet fever my freshman year and had developed scar tissue on my heart, so when this felt suspiciously similar to the pleurisy I'd had in high school, I was worried I had an infection and would die imminently). For all these reasons, I didn't want to get up, but it had gotten to the point where if I didn't get out of bed soon I wouldn't be able to shower and dress in time for the high school class I taught in the afternoon.

I stumbled out into the hallway, where the door alarm became impressively louder, and on my way into the bathroom I met a girl who lived down the hall. She looked upset and said "Can you believe they're making us go to classes today?" Having no idea what she was talking about, I gave a confused look and shrugged. I wondered if she meant because it was such beautiful weather out, or if something had happened in the building or on campus that was causing the constant door alarm. She saw that I hadn't turned on the news and told me what all had happened, and all I could say was "Oh God."

I went into the shower and mostly stared at the wall, stunned and paralyzed. Though I lived in that dorm for a whole semester, I have almost no memories of showering there, except for this morning, when I was watching water go down the drain and feeling increasingly sicker and more confused.

Memory is a funny thing. I know that I was late to class because I decided to call my mother, who had been frantically trying to track down friends and loved ones and my brother, who had been helping a friend move out of Manhattan. On the walk over to the high school, I saw a blue jay in the bushes near my college campus, and I remember thinking what a strange sight that was, as if the birds should have known today wasn't that kind of day. I also remember thinking I couldn't tell anyone about this bird, that there was no way of mentioning it without it being wholly inappropriate and irrelevant, and that made me terribly sad.

My supervisor decided we wouldn't actually have class that day, but instead we would kind of all hang out and relax (I believe her words were "reflect and contemplate"). I thought this was a foolish decision, because a handful of the students were blasting anti-Arab invectives while the others sat in offended outrage, gritting their teeth while trying to gossip or say sensitive things. The supervisor knew I was from New Jersey and asked if I'd "been affected," which is of course a weird way of putting it, but at that point I didn't know. My mother was still trying to find people and we didn't have any of the news we later got.

Not surprisingly, the pain in my chest worsened considerably, to the point where I was having a hard time standing. My supervisor probably thought I was emotionally upset, which I also was, and she asked if I wanted her to take the class for the day. Of course I accepted, and I went back to my dorm room. This is when I turned on the news and started uncontrollably crying. I truly couldn't cope, and I couldn't get it together by the time I started walking across campus, tears streaming down my face, for my afternoon class.

I ran into the same girl who had told me what'd happened that morning. She somehow felt responsible, and she apologized, as if the way she'd told me was what caused my reaction.

When I got to my classroom, it was empty, and I was confused. In all that was going on, I'd forgotten that we had a guest lecturer scheduled, and because I was a few minutes late, they'd moved to another room already. I missed them, and I kind of shrugged it off, wondering if class had been canceled, but deciding I wasn't concerned enough to check with the department head. Hand to my chest, I stumbled back across campus in searing pain, trying not to breathe or cry or do anything that would make it hurt more. When I got to the health center and said I'd made an appointment, they didn't bother saying I was a few hours early, but simply led me into a room.

I asked the doctor (or nurse-practitioner or whomever I saw) if it was possible that this chest thing was just symptoms of anxiety, since it was getting so much worse now that I was upset. She asked "Apart from the obvious, what other stressors have you been experiencing?" I looked at her blankly, and I can still remember with shame that I had forgotten all about the rest of the world. I even said, "The obvious, like school and stuff?" She stammered "Oh, I meant what's happening in the world today," and we both sat in awkward silence as the realization set in that someone could be so self-absorbed and childish on that day.

She gave me a prescription for antibiotics, but wouldn't give me prescription allergy pills since they could contribute to the palpitations. She said I would wear a heart monitor for a few days and make sure everything was alright, but that I'd have to come back to set that up. As I was leaving, with no intention of coming back for a heart monitor, she put her hand on my arm and said, "Also, maybe you should make an appointment with the counseling center." Evidently she had no idea that I was already seeing them and that at the time, I was pretty heavily medicated (alarming that that hadn't made its way onto my medical history, incidentally).

Shortly after 9/11 I stopped going to therapy because I couldn't take myself seriously whining about my own problems and inability to cope when there were such bigger tragedies in the world. Also I couldn't get to my appointments on time, and I was sick of making transparent excuses or outright lying and watching my therapist's face as she tried to maintain patience.

Where I'm going with what is basically a rambling diatribe, is that I am incredibly selfish and immature, and I'm afraid I have not grown as a person at all since that day. I still can't deal with the ins and outs of daily life. I still blame everything and everyone else for my problems, and I attribute some malicious and specific energy, aimed from an inherently cruel universe, directly at me for the things I can't control. I still get in deep depressive states and believe that I am being logical and realistic. I still get panicky chest pains over small and mostly manageable things.

The list goes on, but I think I've made my point. I am a mess, and instead of looking inward for something I can do about it, my first tendency is to look outwards, beseeching the heavens for something or someone to blame. Occasionally I want things to get better, if only so I can be vindicated.

And I'm really tired of being this person. When I say I am exhausted, it's not just with the inconveniences I experience or the responsibilities I've been neglecting. I'm exhausted with myself and the sheer energy and force of will it takes to continue dealing with being who I am. It's possible that I'm at the point where it is more work to find another place on the counter to stack something than to just put it away where it belongs. It's kind of like how I won't ever miss class because I can't deal with having to come up with an excuse and I'm too socially phobic to have to call or email my professor to explain my absence (even if it's legitimate). If that comes in the form of acting responsibly, so be it, but it's happenstance at best.

Either way, some major housekeeping is in order, and right away. If I don't fix what's going on in here, no one else will, and I'm kind of afraid what will become of it all then.

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This page contains a single entry by Vicki published on September 12, 2007 12:59 AM.

Perspective was the previous entry in this blog.

They know what matters is the next entry in this blog.

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