Dancing with Tears In My Eyes

That Age-Old Combination of Time Team and QI

I've actually had dig deep down in my memory banks to find memories and feelings to supplement the diary entries. This is all a background entry, because I didn't write anything the whole of September 2012. I didn't start writing until I settled into college, because I didn't want my new start to be distracted by my need to write in the diary and not focussing on work like I should have been.

It's taken a lot of searching, complete with a mini Time Team style team inside my head chipping away at the surface of my memory banks to see what lies beneath, "as usual," they've "had just three days to find out". It's unsettling and very uncomfortable to dig up the memories again, but I have to do it to get the closure I need from them. I don't actually have anything else to do at the moment, because the house is ridiculously silent and empty. My dad is snoring away in the room next door, completely zonked out from working the night shift all day every day. It's peaceful if I lie on my bed and look at the glow in the dark stars on the ceiling. Since I redecorated my room three years ago, I've only gotten around to putting up seven of them, in the shape of the Big Dipper. It's still relaxing to look at them anyway.

I get as far back as my first day at college, seeing his initials typed with the form name on my timetable and wondering what it meant. To me, it was a random jumble of eight letters and a single number, separated at three digit intervals by little hyphens. BLEEP BLEEP BLEEP!!! If I was on QI, I would have just set off the wrong answer buzzer and scored minus ten points, because they're not hyphens, they're dashes. 

The forms at college hadn't yet been timetabled properly. Everyone knew their personal tutor, but not the day or the time. We found those out later on in the week: on the Friday, because I went home ill after throwing up everywhere and passing out due to my anxiety. I didn't know that it was anxiety back then, and just thought I was ill, like I had been over the summer. Someone I knew texted me to say when and where I had to go. Thursday afternoon, after lunch in the little block in the room tucked away under the stairs. Room P3, in the Arnold Building where psychology was usually taught. 

I missed the first ever form. I couldn't face going. Tutorial seemed a waste of time, and I would rather study on my own than have to sit in a room full of people that I had no idea who they were. I'd heard a rumour that the year had been set a pointless BTEC, and preferred not to add a load more work onto my already mounting pile. "Learning to Learn" didn't really appeal to me.

The second ever form, he missed because he went home ill. It meant we had the delights of two year heads: the Head of Year 12 and the Head of Year 13. I don't know why I went. I think I got told I was meant to be there because it was compulsory. Or I had nothing better to do, so I went. The rumours about the BTEC were right. And my initial thoughts on the people were right too. Only one seemed nice and a bit of a misfit like me. She was a good egg, and I wish I had got to know her better. I liked her jacket: Avenged Sevenfold. I listened to the band sometimes when they were on Kerrang late at night. I remember choosing someone who inspired me, and choosing my someone I saw as a half brother, Judd. I didn't like the Head of Year 13. She struck me as a bit of a control freak. I didn't like her fake smile and the artificial brightness she used when she spoke. I felt as if she was screaming to be liked by everyone in the room, as if she wanted attention. I had to ask her to sign my bursary form at the end of the session, and she looked at me like I was a poor child with no money. She signed it, but I didn't really like how she looked at me. It was like I was on Dragons Den or something, and she was the Dragon Lady.

The only memory I have if the first ever form I had with Mr. Brightside is of him sitting behind a desk and going to get me and the other girl a BTEC booklet. That's all I remember. I vaguely remember Mr. Brightside the whole glasses and messy hair thing. I'd passed him in the corridors and thought he was a student. And that's it. About ten seconds of memory for a hour lesson slot. That's it. He looked like someone else I had come to see as a half brother, and initially I had thought it was him I had as my form tutor, despite the fact Robert was a Drill Instructor at RAF Halton. Then I realised that Mr. Brightside didn't have to duck under the door frames, so he was too much of a midget to be Robert.

It's not a lot to remember, but I had a lot swimming around in my head. I was upset because of a death of someone really close to me. I was angry because he'd been murdered. I didn't really want to be there, but went anyway just to show my face, and say that yes I had actually been to form and met my form tutor. My mind was elsewhere. I used to daydream a lot in school, and the daydreams became more and more powerful and easy to get sucked into. If I didn't want to be somewhere, I would imagine that I was somewhere else. And it made lessons seem shorter. It took away any pain I felt. It made everything so much easier. 

It all seemed so safe and normal, and nice and welcoming, and like college was supposed to be. If any of you readers out there were expecting a big bang to start everything off, then I'm sorry to disappoint. 

All I have is a tiny first impression and that's it.