In The Driver's Seat

Hypothetical Conversations

I'm sitting where I saw last class and I'm talking. I'm talking and spilling out my emotions, my frustrations and sharing what I wish I shared then but was too scared too. It doesn't help that I wasn't feeling well, too, so really it was good to not speak but it still sucked because I am still learning to speak upa nd that sucks and I end up with imaginary conversations like this...

I'm sitting where I was, in our last class, and I'm talking.

   "We're here and we're discussing this and it's... fine, I don't know, it's just..." I trail off, trying to gather my thoughts, gathering them and finding them and I am so--

   "I'm bored!" I exclaim, frutrated. I sigh. "I'm bored--no offense," I gesture to the people presenting. "You're--fine, I'm just... bored. I don't want to talk about this." "What do you want to talk about?"

   My professor asks or maybe she says something else--this imaginary conversation isn't exactly solid, it isn't--it isn't contingent on what she says. I keep talking like she hasn't said a word.

   "I don't want to talk about this. I want to talk about--trauma, the definition of trauma..--and how when you're in it," there's a comma here but I'm talking like I rush through it. "You don't think there's an end. When you are in a trauma, you don't think of the end--it is never going to end--you are in it and that's it! You're in it! You are in it and it is never going to end or maybe the end is your life--the end of your life--but there is no end..." There's a pause here but I'm talking so fast and my entire speech feels rushed and I am upset and emotional and it is so much--"When you are experiencing a trauma you are in it and there is no end to it! .... when you're it in, that's it...."

   She's brought up the definition of trauma before which, as she explained it is, as psychologists have said, something with a beginning , a middle, and an end, and you know how it is going to end but, really.... I question that heavily because when you're in it, you're in it and you can never really guess how it's going to end, you don't actually know... When I was bullied: I didn't know. When I got a third degree burn on my leg: I didn't know. When I got my other major injury: I. did. not. know. all I knew was pain and there was no end and there was no end and there is no end--and it has ended. It has since ended but I did not know how that was going to end. I did not think it would, though I desperately wanted to....

This imagined conversation goes on and maybe my professor catches on to that something, something is wrong and I do not know what--though I guess maybe I do-I have anxiety and depression and those are definitely what's wrong--but this feels like something more, and I am bored and I am bored and I am bored and I am bored and I am bored and I am bored....

... And I am frustrated because I am bored and this was supposed to be better--and... welll..

it's still better. it feels better, theres still more but... I'm bored.

Again.

....

I hate this.

I'm getting--well trying, succeeding, failing--at actually driving, though. I am in the driver's seat, and, am hopefully actually driving the car on occasion instead of one of the other fuckers taking the wheel.....

I'm trying. Really hard... not quite there yet but uhh *deep, heavy sigh* I'll get there.

I'll get there eventually.

One step,

and then another,

and I....

and I will keep walking in the dark because maybe, just maybe, hopefully,

I will not fall.