Lana feels

This, I think, is the longest I've gone without updating since... well, since the last time I went this long without updating. But it's been a while. I've been kind of lacking in inspiration lately in all fields. Life is... frustrating. Draining. I'm not a big fan of this time of year, birthday and breaks or not. I turned seventeen a week ago, for what it's worth. I don't know what it is but I'm suddenly so sick of high school I could scream. I came back to school with so much inspiration this year. High hopes, so on and so forth. And I managed to make it last through the first quarter, through the play, and then I was done. Whatever done means. Operatively, it means that I have two big essays for my two big classes that are majorly late. I'll get them in, but Tom and Clarkie aren't going to be happy with me. I'm not happy with me, but I can't seem to write anything, I can't even seem to sit still. I can't think along a track for ten seconds. I want motion. I want sensation. I'm feeling numb and I hate numbness above and beyond all else. And then Friday was just the cap on a week of doldrums.

Friday when I go to see the headmaster about what I thought was a done deal getting my best friend allowed on the campus of that stupid, self-contained place. And without even looking at me he says he's decided... something. Something about waiting until the new year, and somehow he managed to make it sound like this was okay because I was barely going to be there any more anyway. Because, really, there's three weeks until break and then I'm going to be on senior project and then he switched tracks because that wasn't making any sense. And he managed to spend about twenty minutes explaining just how little I, she, we, mattered in the grand scheme of that place. Explaining how he tries to make the "best" decisions instead of the "right" ones, and trying to make this sound noble. And I just clamped my teeth down on every bit of soft tissue I could find in my mouth because there's no way in hell I would ever let him see me cry. I listened to him with half an ear and a frozen expression and all I could hear running through my head was "ohgodscesca," intermingled occasionally with "what the hell is this idiot saying" when he would say something especially snakey. The worst thing about Andrew is how persuasive he sounds when he's talking. Somehow he's able to make ignoring human decency and compassion in one's decisions sound noble, and the sad thing is that I think it's because that's really his truth. I really want to ask him if that's what he teaches his children, but I never quite dare. I never quite have the nerve. I don't know what I want at this point - part of me wants more than anything to make as big a scene about this as I can, and part of me wants to force him to change his mind. I think I can. I think I can get enough of the faculty to go talk to him, and enough of the ones who're behind this in the first place to deal with their issues to make him change it. But part of me just wants to get up at all-school meeting and scream or cry or... Something. Because what I did on Friday was tell him that this was not the last he would hear of it and stalk out of his office with my chin held up. Suddenly understanding the thing about keeping your chin up - it's a gravity thing when your eyes are full of tears. I walked across the lawn to Heather's office and waited until it was empty and I told her. She gave me a much-needed hug, but she's busy too, and at this point this is my fight. And still all I could think was "how the hell can I tell her this?" How could I hurt her that way? I love her like I've never loved anybody - she's my best friend, she's like a sister but we don't squabble, ever. She never snaps at me for stupid things. So I left Heather's office and I ran into Chris, and I must have looked really bad because he asked me if I wanted to chat. I did, but couldn't, and instead just went out to the tree cluster by the empty irrigation ditch and watered the grass. I didn't tell her until I was back here, either. On AIM. Truth be told, it was probably better that way because I can do many things in typeface that I could never do with my voice, in person or on the phone, but I still feel like a coward. And that moment I was so sure I had lost her. It makes me realize how unsure of myself I still am - I am more certain of her and our friendship than I ever have been about any I've ever had, and yet I had to hurt her and I feared losing her. I told her I loved her and he couldn't change our friendship and she said... Something other than the acceptance and return of that. So I ran away to dinner with my family, because I didn't know what to do.

She called today and it was probably the biggest relief I've ever felt to hear her voice. And we talked not at all about school or about Andrew or about this stupid policy, but about her boyfriend and my gangsterette and how many times one can squeeze the term "days and days of makeup sex" into one conversation. On average of twice a sentence if you wish to retain any semblance of coherency, we discovered. And we were best friends and that was that. I don't know what I would do without this girl and I realized this weekend just how much I don't ever want to find out.

I'm listening now to Catie Curtis, to a song I downloaded from Amazon, about sisterhood and I'm thinking about the bonds between women. Between sisters and friends, and about the way that friends become sisters and sisters become friends, and the way we create family around ourselves. I get so lost sometimes, and I'm building up a net of people who can find me. Thus far it's a small net and tentative in places, but all the same, it's there and I can feel it. And it's not about CRMS. I'm ready to be done with that place. It's about me, and other women, and it's about trying so hard to make contact. People build so many walls and being home is so hard because my father's still trying to tell me how proud he is of me and I have no idea what he's talking about, and my mother is so sad and I don't know what about, and my sister has mood swings like a kite on a windy day and I never know what's going to set her off. Basically, I'm really very done with all of this. With everything I've known thus far. I want to know where I'm going to be next year. I want this year to hurry the hell up. I want it to be Christmas break.

Actually. I kind of want it to be Friday, cause on Friday I have a date.