Today is my mom's 55th birthday. It's sacrilege for me to spell that out as clearly as I just did, with the age not being a lie and all, but this has always been a forum for uncomfortable truth. That isn't on my mind much right now. I finished getting ready for it a while ago. Right now, I've begun packing.
I started packing significantly later than I would have liked - an hour and a half out, to be exact. I spent that standing on top of my Toy Machine board sobbing and recounting to myself my life from grade 8 up until now, particularly with Ch--- and all that relates to her. I haven't thought about her in forever. She's come back since I alluded to her again to E---, who I spent the whole day with. I'm coming up to the fact I've purposefully put up a smokescreen over myself for people like E---, meaning my friends these days. He barely knows about my past, and I've been obnoxiously vague and sensationalist about it. I apologized to him for that after I dropped him off at his house. Me sobbing to myself in my garage was me practicing giving him a proper explanation of her and everything I've been alluding to. It has been the only time I've been honest with myself in a while. It's also the only time I've shown myself any sort of sympathy in just as long.
Edmonton is going to be weird. I'm beyond excited for it, but I'm also really scared. Not of the city, but of myself. I'm scared shitless of how I am following me there: my general secret glum-ness and manic, crisis-seeking energy, and occasional complete lethargic lack of it. I'm scared of being a bad student again, of letting my friends and family more again, and I'm particularly scared of falling in love out there. Sometimes, I never want to be seen again by anyone I know. But I have to be. Whether I like it or not, I'm out in the open for everyone. I have to keep going.
I wish I could apologize to everyone. Sometimes, I blurt out "I'm really sorry" to no one in particular. Every time I try to, everyone insists that it, no matter what it is, isn't that big of a deal. But that just feels like they're being charitable to me. It always feels like a life-changing big deal. I just wish I had the karmic currency to pay whatever I owe it. It feels like I'm in such debt.
I have no delusions that Edmonton will rid me of this actual self-hatred, even though there's this real utopian promise tucked away in between its Soviet-style streets. The kids there seem like they're on to something, and I'm headed right for them. Wild dreams of techno and the novel are dancing in the heads of those kids, who are just like me. I am poised to be friends with all of them, and perhaps we'll go on to do all that we dream of. The ambitions of our near future campfires perhaps will be made real one day soon. I just do not want to fucking feel like this anymore, and I'm so sorry to everyone I've hurt. Especially you, Madison.
I have to leave the country. I have to leave town.
