10th grade started off being angsty. I was mad that I had to move and hated the school and hated the house and hated the neighbourhood and pretty much felt weird and out of place everywhere I went. I was still upset over Tyler. I prayed a lot, and then forgot to pray, and then prayed more because I felt bad for not praying.
In December, Tyler wrote me a really long email that made me both furious at how victimising it was and thrilled that I had elicited a reaction. I replied, being dramatic and theatrical because I knew it would hurt. He didn't respond and we didn't talk. I think I was over it at that point.
During that time I joined winter track and it was cold but I was excited. I was good at the 300m (it still remains as one of my best races which is so weird because I can't imagine running the 300 now) and I had become acquainted with people. There were still times when I felt like the world's grossest and most awkward person and these times were frequent and intense but at least things were improving.
Things continued that way. I was good at school. I still felt socially inept and like there was a lot I could improve on but I was getting there. I was starting to fumble with words a lot less. We went to Mexico and I wrote a paper on fascism for Euro and the weather was nice and I had started doing long distance, a thing I've wanted to do since I started track that one time in 5th grade.
Sometime around when grades come out I found out I had an 83 on the trig regents and a 600 on the chem SAT II. This did not bode well. I felt sick. The whole summer felt out of tune but I'm not sure whether it was because of this or because my cousin from Russia came to visit and it still feels like yesterday. There was a lot of frustration.
11th grade started off normally, with nothing eventful really happening. I took driver's ed and felt adult and felt like I could do things. Strangely, I felt more adult concerning driving then than I do now, but that's time for you. Robert and I became friends. I lost touch with a lot of my friends, both through willful separation (on my part) and not having any classes together. I found several new friends. I did things.
Maarya started panicking around February, which invariably led me to panic on my part because I didn't know what to do. I spent a very awkward and angry vacation in Jamaica with way too many people, studying for the SATs and trying to convince my parents to let me move out after college because if I don't I might die. I spent a lot of time joking about dying with Robert, which scared him. Track was not the same that spring. There was too much drama.
Then there were tests and stress and I hooked up a bit which was gross but whatever and then I tried to read but I realised how alone I was and what's the fun in going out if you're going to the same place to do the same thing at the same time every day. I started cutting sometime around May and Maarya came to visit which was stressful but also nice and new, really new.
The summer was a mess. My parents split up and both of them were mad at me a lot of the time. I visited Maarya and that was nice, but still stressful, and I missed her a lot when I came back. I tried out for track but it was the morning after I came back from Buffalo, after I came back from camp, after I had spent two weeks furiously packing. My throat closed up in the middle of a timed mile run, I stopped because I was terrified, my coach yelled at me for not trying hard enough and coming up with excuses, I cried a bit and quit.
Robert and I have a falling out. I thought the coming of school would make things better because at least I'd have stuff to focus on, but there was suddenly an influx of stuff to focus on and I did not have the energy to expend on all of it. People were yelling and my head was exploding and I really had nobody to tell this to because I didn't want to bother Maarya, since she was not too well off herself. I had no room to hide away in, not even a corner or someplace quiet where people wouldn't barge in on me and I could let my guard down. I spent a lot of time panicking, a lot of time lying in bed under the covers with my ears to my head to drown the noise out and maybe if it was dark and quiet I could pretend I was not surrounded, not intruded on and degraded. It was hard to breathe again, but this time all the time. I found myself gasping for air.
Then there was Sandy and I got a breath, if only for a moment, though it should have been longer seeing as we were out for so long. School started again and I fell back into it. I wanted to die. I tried several times but I was much too much of a coward to ever carry through with it. My mum took me to a therapist once, who told me my problems were small and I did not need help. I exploded on my mum a couple times in December, and she apologised. Then Maarya came, and it was alright, and how dare anyone make me think it won't be, or that I deserved any of what happened.
