Broke

Everything starts out vague.  Birth.  Your vision is blurry.  It’s cold.  And after all that stress of getting pushed out of your mother’s love canal, your memory forgets the whole 6 hours of labor (which in hindsight is probably the a good amnesia to have.)

So there was once a girl that liked technology.  She liked it ever since she remembered - ever since her vision was clear and she had memories.

She thought it started in the fourth grade.  That’s when her parents caved and bought a computer – and when she heard the shrill of the dial-up modem, a chill went down her spine.  It was like it was talking to her.

Then she got her first boom box.

Her parents didn’t like the modern radio stations.  Radio stations sung about sex and drugs, and they didn’t want that to invade her mind, so they told her she couldn’t listen to the radio, she could only listen to the approved list of tapes and compact discs – the ones that came from the Christian bookstore down the street that sold the lame records.  You know those boy bands that substituted the words “baby” and “sexy” with “Lord” and “Jesus” and “You.”

But every day after school, she would go into her bedroom, lock the door, and do homework in the corner farthest from her door.  There she would turn her little stereo to her favorite FM station, and she would listen to the quiet buzz of the DJ and the bubble gum pop, and she would pray that her mother wouldn’t hear that stereo playing.  She would even set up simulations.  She would turn her radio on, leave her room and close the door just to make sure the music wasn’t audible to outsiders.

She would concentrate so intently on that music that she wouldn’t do her homework.  Her grades started to fail.  Her relationships with her peers began to suffer.  Her parents sent her to a different school the next year. 

Things would change, people would move away, but that stereo was always sitting on her bookshelf.

In the fifth grade, she wrote poetry about her secret love affair with the radio.  The teacher approved.  Her mother thought she was crazy.

And then, one day, it stopped singing for her.  It was no longer functioning.  It broke.  She didn’t know what to do.  The bottom of her little, low decibel world had fallen out.  The obsessed was clueless concerning her obsession.  She cried.  She never cried, but on this particular, she cried for her stereo.  She thought that maybe if she cried, her sadness would go away – she would have some kind of catharsis, but that never happened.

It was almost like someone quitting cigarettes.  She had to learn to eat and dance and enjoy things again.  The music didn’t even do it for her anymore.  She had to recondition.  She had to fake it till she made it.  She couldn’t love anymore – she had to teach herself how to feel again – to feel like she did about that radio.

To this day, she’s still trying to recover.

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I'm coming back down now.  The air is starting to get sharp, and I hate it and love it.  When I go home, maybe I'll try to get a tan.  I don't like looking like a ghost.  Maybe the warmer my skin is, the warmer I'll feel.

This one time, I considered becoming a drug dealer.  Don't worry, I'm not, but I thought about it.  And I didn't just think, "Hey, maybe I'll become a drug dealer."  I considered the logistics.  Where would I get wholesale?  How could I avoid getting caught?  What would my street name be?  If I went to jail, what would that mean for me?

I chose not to become a drug dealer.  I guess there are better things to do, but I wasn't doing it because I was lazy.  It was a long time ago, but I think I wanted to become a drug dealer because I could get some money.  I told my friends about my plan, and the sad thing was that they were totally digging it.  I think it was entertaining, not just for them, but for me.  I mean, imagine telling your kids that when you're all old and wrinkled at the nursing home, "Yeah, I was a drug dealer."  Imagine all the adventure that would go along with it.  The knives and the fights and running from the cops.

I guess this kind of explains why I can't come to any kind of career choice, because my first choice was drug dealer.  There isn't a lot that lives up to that.  Maybe a hitman could brag to a drug dealer.

Oh.

Something about this makes my mind work - like it did when I was young and normal.  I can't explain it, but it's freeing - like new shoes and the bottom of my salad bowl.  I love it.

Sometimes I realize how lonely I am.  There's something not right about me - not right about all of us eighth graders that went out together.  They screwed us over.  It makes me hate private schools.  Maybe we should have been taught to think for ourselves.  We're all cursed, don't you think?  Maybe not.  I'm sure some of you are happy.  Some of you feel good.

I have Latin tomorrow at 11.  Every time I walk into the class it reminds me of the pattern that I'm stuck in.  I'm stuck in the ninth grade looking for true love and looking for somewhere to fit in.  I want a resolution, and even if I don't have that, I could go for some conflict, some real-life conflict that makes me feel like there's something I'm working towards.  Sure, we have our eternity mapped out for us, but I need some goals.  I've never made goals.  No one ever told me to.  I don't have a post-graduation plan.  I don't have a plan at all.  I've never had plans.  Plans are for people who are scared the future won't go their way.  I don't even need the future to go my way - I just need it to go.

Okay, so you're reading this and realizing how depressing I am.  Psychologists say that depressed people have the better grasp on reality.  But I guess if you have a better grasp on your reality, you slowly begin to realize how bad reality sucks.  Fine, tell me to grow up.  Reality is a fine wine, but I don't see the bittersweetness in my reality, and I suppose that means I either need to find it or I need to put on the rose-colored glasses of the happy people.  Reality isn't a lightheaded buzz - it's sobering.

Don't bother me with your solutions though, because chances are, you're wearing the glasses and I'm not, and I won't be able to understand what you're talking about because my world is blue and your world is pink.