August 11, 2002 - 2.14 am
I've been having some late nights recently. All for good reasons, last night I went to Denny's with L and EH and tonight I hung out with L and my sister and this evening, and it was
fun.
Let me try to explain my current state to you. I got home a couple of minutes ago, and I locked the doors, and washed my face, brushed my teeth, pulled my hair back and got into my jammies. I'm sitting, wrapped in a light blanket because it's nice and cool in my room. I'm sitting at my computer desk, bathed in warm light from a cute little black desk lamp that my mother bought for me for two dollars when I moved out. In the other room, sleep a big, goofy, sweet yellow lab, and an always purring blond cat. I'm sitting in my house, forty five minutes away from my family home, two minutes from the university where I study, which I love. Seven minutes from the greatest friend in the entire world. I'm a successful student, I can get into the graduate schools that I want to get into, I've yet to earn a C in college, so far I've kept everything above that. I have everything I need and most things that I want. In a few days, I'm having some girlfriends over for a friend who's getting married September 1st. The day after that, A turns 20, and there's a party for him at his new place. I am liked and loved. How I feel right now compared to how my life is doesn't seem to fit.
Tonight leaving L and SK's appartment complex tonight, I was re-reading the beginning of the Devine Secrets, without a care in the world, soaking up Rebecca Wells' words, and as I walked into the darkness, my mind suddenly flashed into attack mode. I was terrified. I froze, twenty feet from the door, ten feet from my car, cast in sharp relief from the darkness by an street light that kept flickering and I was afraid. I was too scared to go around the corner for a minute. My hands were shaking so badly I couldn't get my keys into their defensive position. I wanted to go back in to L's apartment and ask if I could sleep there, just for tonight.
There was no visable threat. The night was silent and clear and yet, I was terrified beyond all reason. I hate this. I don't feel safe. L thinks I should go to the university's free counseling and I can't. I really feel like I can't. I don't feel safe now, but I didn't feel safe with a counselor. I was told that I don't have it so bad and I just need to pull it together. I know I don't have it so bad, in fact, I feel like I have it pretty great, but sometimes I'm afraid. Sometimes I just wish I felt safe. Sometimes I feel so safe so protected so loved, and these times which are so much farther and farther in between now, where I feel so exposed I'm even more scared. I feel like this entry is shit because I know I've been focusing on the wording, and the phrases.
But there you have it, then.
Emily
