Chapter 52

Searching for a soft spot in the solar system – where did my Pluto Go?



And I let myself believe, for a long time, that I could be in a relationship. In a happy relationship. The kind where you get into fights once in a while, but where there's always someone to call when you just threw up everything you ate. And every time I threw up I explained that I wanted to go to sober house, which is ironic because I was anything but sober. And maybe I should have been for my own sanity.
And we all need a vacation now and then, for the past three months I have gone on vacation Monday nights, Wednesday nights, Friday nights and Saturday nights. And that was great. Except that vacation is no longer a vacation. At least not the one I need it to be on. Because it's the kind of vacation that leads you to feel like shit and you can't really do anything about it. And you know you fucked up the next morning but it was great when it happened and you forgot for a bit why you were so sad. But here's the problem, my body hasn't gone on vacation in a very long time, and while my mind is off in another land poking and prodding around, my body's stuck on earth stumbling down a sidewalk at 3 in the morning.
And when I wake up with bloody toes and a headache that could rival an earthquake I deny that I did anything wrong because I had a great night, or at the very least, a couple of great moments.
But I need more than a moment now, I need a week of me time. Time to reflect on whatever it is that is bothering me, forcing me to go on vacation. It's not that we can get tired of people, it's that we get tired of the interactions that we have to supply to be around people. When you take a sick day you lie in bed and watch movie after movie and don't worry about a thing. And you don't talk to people and you don't think about people or you might think about people but they are not there to interrupt that badly needed stream of thought.
And so I’m counting down the days until I can go on Thanksgiving vacation. Not because I’m unhappy here at school, but for the simple reason that I hate myself. I need to take break from the interactions I produce when I talk to people. How I hold myself. How I break down when I’m being made fun of and retaliate when someone’s trying to be nice. How I’m sad because boys don’t love me, but if he did, I wouldn’t love him either. How even on my best days I still feel ugly even though there are at least 20 other people at this school who are more unfortunate than I am. And the great part about that is that those twenty people probably have loving parents who still tell them that they are beautiful.