Angst

by Victoria Sawyer

  March 3, 2005

  Worrying is my damn unpaid job

  I’m lying sprawled out in my room at home, overwhelmed, stressed and desperate for relaxation, but I have so much to do and it doesn’t include the necessary, all-consuming worrying that I seem to be indulging in lately. I put my hot forehead on my cool textbook, groaning inside with frustration. My mind is heaping worry and fear of failure on top of my head, along with a new terrifying concern that is constantly dragging through my mind every few minutes. Just stop thinking about it!

  Truth is, I didn’t even want to go to college and now look at me, struggling to pay attention to the work in front of me, trying to bring the tiny writing on the page back into focus. After high school I was depressed by the idea of four more years of homework, tests, projects, and papers. I had already been through 12 years and I couldn’t imagine any more. I forced myself to go because I knew it was the right thing to do and a way to help me make more money in the future. But now I’m cursing myself, what on earth did I sign up for? Apparently for more stress, late nights, and the heavy feeling of impending failure.

  So…now I’m in my second semester trying to do my best, but really not giving my classes my all because of everything else going on in my life. My brain feels like mush and I long for sleep. I’ve already read the same sentence three times without understanding a word. My general education courses are killing me. I’m not good at science and I’m struggling to understand the concepts. I know that with enough time and energy I could succeed, but the idea of spending that amount of time on it seems futile. I don’t think I can focus on anything right now, but I have to try because tomorrow is a big test.

  My thoughts keep creeping back to the one subject I don’t want to think about. It’s like I can forget for a while and really focus on what I am doing, but every few minutes the horrifying thought pops back into my head and I get upset all over again. I had unprotected sex. I could be pregnant. I know I took the morning-after pill, but it doesn’t mean I’m not going to worry. Worrying is like my damn unpaid job. Besides, I could have an STD. I could have any number of things that could jeopardize my future. I mean I think he’s clean, but how do I really know? My heart starts thudding all over again and I flush with heat. There is nothing I can do right now. Nothing, except worry.

  The other thing is that I’m depressed. I had sex for the first time and it wasn’t what I expected and it wasn’t something I planned. I almost can’t believe it happened, that it was me, that I did the things I did, said the things I said. I was too drunk. And now…he hasn’t spoken to me. I’m nothing to him. It was a mistake and I’ll bet he thinks so too, or maybe he thinks it was…another score, another one night stand. I have no idea what he thinks. But I’m not sure I really wish I could take it back. For so many reasons I wish I could, but for others I’m glad I can’t. And now I’m here alone worrying about my gyno appointment tomorrow. Faccckkkk. I could scream.

  Long after attempting, and only partially succeeding, to study I move on to a project for my poetry class. Poetry is actually turning out to be harder than I had initially imagined. Frankly, it’s making me fucking crazy because my professor doesn’t seem to like my work, explaining that nothing I write is clear enough. I don’t get it. Every piece of poetry I’ve ever read has made absolutely no sense at all or was open to interpretation, so I can’t see how being clear and concise is good poetry. I like my poetry best when it first flows from my pen, fresh, raw and full of feeling. But my professor expects me to edit my work, bringing in draft after draft, forcing me to overthink each line, when I had been happy with it to begin with and every draft seems to degrade the work.

  To make matters worse the students in my class are pretty good. They think of subjects I’ve never imagined and come up with unique word combinations and lines that blow my mind. I scratch a few words onto the page, struggling to revise a poem I wrote weeks ago, staring at the lines on the page, trying to think of another way to say the same thing. Somehow I have to try to make my meaning clear without ruining the lyrical feel of the piece. God how I hate revising!

  Eventually I put down my pen in exhaustion with a few new decent lines. Now I need to relax before going to bed and the best way to unwind is to listen to music and draw. I also need to distract myself from thinking about tomorrow. Not only do I have a test, I’m also practically shitting myself over this gyno thing. It’s my first one, ever. Necessary so I can get on birth control and not have to worry about pregnancy. I’ve been panicking for days over this cause I can’t imagine sitting in the waiting room waiting for that appointment, or being on the table. Oh my God that table scares me.

  I look down at my book. I know I should study some more, but I don’t think I can stand it. My brain just won’t process the information no matter how long I stare at the words. Finally I get up and flip on my CD player. Pink Floyd moans out of the speakers and I sit back down, my back against the side of my bed and close my eyes. I focus my attention on the notes of the guitar. It’s almost like wailing, like someone letting out their soul through music. I follow the notes up and down the scale, letting myself relax, trying to let out the tension in my body, allowing myself to simply feel. The words are perfect, exactly how I want to feel, to be numb and never able to feel any pain or stress.

  After the poignant guitar solo, I open my eyes. My large clipboard with a blank piece of white paper under the clips is leaning against one wall. I actually do have an assignment for my drawing class coming up in a few weeks that’s a self-portrait, but the idea of working on an accurate self-portrait seems like torture. I want to do something else, something different.

  I rummage in my school bag nearby and pull out my tin of charcoal. The dense black stump will stain my fingertips for days, but I don’t care. I need to let out my emotions. I grip the tiny piece and the charcoal moves fluidly over the page as the guitar wails and sobs in the background. Dark black lines appear, bumping up against stark white paper.

  I use my fingers to smudge the distinction between them into different shades of grey. I’m drawing a strange mish-mash of a face and other items that somehow seem to describe the crisis I’m in right now. A tornado is twirling near an eye which has a huge tear drop about to fall. I add in other elements, focusing on the details. This feels like therapy right now. I need therapy.

  My strokes with the charcoal are long and hard and I allow myself feel free for a moment. Creation always feels freeing. That and the music, the sad, yet powerful throb of the guitar, the feeling that it is calling out, begging to be heard. I focus all my attention on what I’m doing, paying special attention to how an eye really looks by pulling out a mirror to study my own features.

  My determination to draw accurately consumes me. I add in other elements, storm clouds, a bottle of alcohol, a paint brush, trying to make something abstract that somehow represents how I’m feeling right now. I’m feeling like clouds are covering me, a tornado is twirling my life into a downward spiral of doom and I just want to cry. Before I know it an hour has passed and I realize that I’m exhausted and I need sleep. I hastily get ready for bed and finally sag down on to the mattress with an exhausted sigh of relief. Luckily sleep comes quickly, although it’s restless, filled with dreams of stress and anxiety.

  March 4, 2005

  No longer abstinent

  “You can take your clothes off and wait on the table for Dr. Perkins,” says the nurse in multi-colored scrubs, gesturing to the paper-lined table with foot stirrups. Medieval torture, the rack anyone? Shit, my stomach clenches up just looking at those little stirrups. “Put on this johnny and leave it open in the back,” she instructs, gathering a gown from a drawer under the table.

  Oh God, here I go. Now it starts, now I freak out, now it goes over the top. I’m breathing hard, trying to stop trembling but I can’t stop it and soon I feel like I’m floating, eyes glassy and unfocused. The nurse leaves, telling me that the doctor will be along shortly and I begin to slowly remove my clot
hes, trying desperately to focus on what I’m doing and not on what is to come.

  Shoes off first, I tell myself, untying my sneakers and placing them under a wooden chair against one wall. Next, are my pants and shirt, I think in a singsong voice, unbuttoning the top button of my jeans. Suddenly before I can remove them I’m gripped with a fresh wave of panic. I sit down abruptly on the hard wooden seat, my heart racing, brow covered in sweat. I bend over, trying to stop the terrible ache that suddenly attacks my stomach, twisting it all up inside. I can’t do it. I have to leave here now! I can’t take my clothes off and sit on that table until she comes in here. I can’t!

  My stomach growls and I feel like I’m going to throw up. How can I sit here and let someone examine me? I’ll feel trapped on that table. Trapped with a horrible device in me that I can’t remove. My stomach churns and I’m thinking, I have no choice, I’ve got to find a bathroom. My stomach heaves again, bile rising up my throat and I get up. I’ve got to go. Now. I pull my shoes on as quickly as I can, one arm wrapped tightly around my middle to stop the stomach contractions. Finally I’m out in the hallway, rushing for the restroom, just barely making it there in time before I lose my lunch. I slam open the door to a stall and think, I am gross! I. Can’t. Do. Anything. Anymore.

  Finally I’m done heaving and I sit back. My throat feels raw. I keep thinking, that’s it. That’s all the food I’ve had for days. There cannot be anymore. But before I know it, there is more. I’m like a machine designed for making myself sick.

  I lean back again, wiping my mouth with my lower arm. Fucking gross. The doctor will be waiting. I have to get up. I have to go back in there and take off my clothes. What will I say? My stomach heaves again and again I’m sick. Goddamn!! I’m doing this shit to myself and it is absolutely fuckin disgusting. The bathroom door opens and someone walks in. I cringe. Let this be it. Let it be over. I have to GO!

  I struggle up, weak kneed and rush out of the stall. I turn on the water at the sink full blast and quickly rinse my mouth. Hurry up! I hurry down the hall, just as the doctor arrives at the door to the exam room.

  “Victoria?” she asks, peering at me over her tiny glasses.

  “Yes,” I say breathlessly. “I had to run to the bathroom.” She smiles at me and motions me inside. My stomach is still clenching, but I try to ignore it, pulling off my clothes behind the screen she indicates. Finally I sit down on the crinkly paper covering.

  “Ok, let’s start again, I’m Dr. Perkins,” she says, businesslike, extending her hand to nervous me who shakes it with a tight little smile.

  “Is this your first time for a pelvic exam?” she asks, sitting down on the wooden chair with a clip board on her lap.

  “Yes,” I reply as we begin to go through the array of questions that are usually asked during a physical exam. Finally she wants to begin the procedure. Luckily she keeps talking as she preps the tools, asking me to lie back. My damn stomach clenches anew and my legs shake in the stirrups. God I’m so weak.

  “Ok, Victoria, I’m going to be touching you between your legs now, you’re going to feel me sliding in the speculum. It’s going to be a little uncomfortable while I get it into place, but afterward you should have very little discomfort,” she says, guiding me through the process.

  There is some strange discomfort and I try to suppress my fidgeting and relax my tight stomach muscles. Finally the device is in and the doctor uses different swabs to take cultures. I’m panicking inside, trying to keep my legs from shaking, trying not to inch back on the table. It’s all I want to do, to close that thing up and rip it out of me, but all I can picture is it somehow pinching me if I move away so I force myself to lie still. Hurry up! I’m pretty much hyperventilating now, as quietly as possible, and I feel light headed, but so far it seems like she hasn’t noticed how I’m reacting. I’m pretty good at hiding this shit.

  “Everything looks really normal, Victoria, but I am going to swab you for STD’s since you indicated that you have been with one partner and are no longer abstinent.”

  I clench up as she uses the final swab. It feels like someone is pinching me inside. My stomach aches and I feel quivery and suddenly I hyper-focus on STD’s. I hope to God I don’t have anything. Please let me be okay.

  Finally the doctor removes the speculum and I sigh in relief. This part of the process is over. The doctor does a quick breast exam and then she leaves the room so I can put my clothes back on. Suddenly I feel better, this trial is almost over. Now I just have to sit through another conversation about test results and birth control options and then I can leave. The worst is over.

  January 25, 2005

  Sloppy drunk loverboy

  I want to party. I…I…I…want to party. New semester, new chances. Now…just to get myself there in one piece. I’m standing next to my car in A lot in indecision, my arms flimsy, without strength, my heavy backpack tugging at them. I need to walk to Hannah’s dorm but my panic keeps growing and growing, my knees suddenly weak, and I’m hot under my heavy coat even though the air is cold and an icy wind blows past me every few minutes. This is it, my last chance to bail before going forward with the evening. Once it starts there is no going home, no driving anywhere. I’m shivering, quaking inside at the thought, but finally after trying to reason with myself, I straighten a bit and put my muscles to work. I can do this. Nothing bad will happen, besides I’ve got all the savior I need in this bag. I gather my courage and the bag and march up the steps out of A lot and down the snow lined street. Tonight will be fun, I demand it. I’ve had enough depression, enough fucking around with anxiety.

  While I walk, I’m obsessing about Jared. Is he interested? Does he give a shit? Will Seth tell him that he saw me kissing Cheater-ex-Nick? Speaking of which, I’m so glad I didn’t do anything else with him. I sigh, I have this teeny tiny thread of hope that Jared will talk to me tonight. But another part of me is fairly certain that things are d-e-a-d between us. Otherwise he would have called me right?

  Kayla and Celeste are already present, lounging on Hannah’s futon doing finishing touches to their make up in hand mirrors when I arrive.

  “Hey, skank,” says Kayla with a smile, staring into the mirror with one eye closed, looking like some insanely beautiful one-eyed pirate, her left hand expertly drawing a thin line of black eye liner on to her lid.

  “It’s Victoria!!!” says Celeste with a smile, coming up to air kiss me on the cheek. “You ready for some beer guzzling, pill poppin, and drug smoking?” she asks with a grin.

  “Hey girls…whassssuuuppp,” I reply, plunking my heavy backpack on the floor. It makes a nice sloshing sound.

  “What’s in the bag?” asks Hannah with a sly smirk, sliding up to me. I haven’t told her about my alcohol stash yet, so the girls will be pretty excited when I pull out my ace card.

  “I dunno, why don’t you find out?” I say with a grin, nudging the bag toward Hannah with my toe. The bag sloshes again and Hannah looks at me with a huge smirk.

  “Is this what I think it is?” she asks, crouching down to unzip the bag and find out.

  “Water bottles, Victoria?” she finally says, looking up at me with disbelief. “You’re shitting me. What the fuck…are you hoping your next hangover won’t be as bad if you drink enough water? Fuck, you had me going there for a minute.”

  I smile at her. “Oh stop your bitching and open the top. Take a nice sniff.” She opens the top, takes a long sniff and her smile widens across her face.

  “Why, Victoria, you shouldn’t have! You’re so kind. Vodka, ladies!” she says in a loud whisper, always afraid that her RA next door will hear her through the thin walls. Hannah pulls out her shot glass collection and soon we’re throwing back shots, giggling around the circle, talking about guys, clothes, and tonight.

  I take a few extra shots, secretly, when the other girls aren’t paying attention and soon vodka starts to blur the edges of my anxiety and I begin to relax. I’m looking to reach Nirvana tonight, the place where I can
no longer feel my ever present panic sensations or the thoughts that race through my mind every single day. God that makes me fuckin depressed that I can only feel that way when drunk! But I push these thoughts away, no time for that shit now. I’m gonna paaarty!

  We set out from Hannah’s building, following the faint sound of pumping music coming from a long low set of apartments down the street. Snow is silently falling, large flakes that stick to eye lashes, disintegrate on perfectly coifed hair and land and melt on exposed cleavage and bare mid-riffs under open coats. As we get closer I can see a bunch of police on bikes, pedaling by silently in blue uniforms. Authority. But I remind myself that as long as we don’t do anything stupid we’ll be fine. We cross the street, making our way to the Ghettos, a grungy set of apartments just off campus.

  “Victoria, you totally missed Celeste’s performance last weekend. We got back to campus early and there was this little party going on at ATO, so we went down there. You’ll never guess what she did,” drawls Kayla with a smile.

  “What did she do?!” I ask.

  “Well, first off she was wasted and rolling on some X that I procured and then she flashed the frat boys. Showed um her tits,” Kayla states with a laugh.

  “Haha Kayla-bitch,” says Celeste, smacking her friend on the arm. “I did do it, Vic, I flashed those guys and they fuckin loved it. They loved it,” she reiterates. Kayla laughs again.

  “They did. They fuckin’ loved it. One of them…Jeremiah or something, took her right up to his room and had his way with her, the little skank.”

  My stomach flipflops. Who is Jeremiah? I hope Kayla doesn’t mean Jared. I smile and laugh along with the girls, pretending that images of Jared sleeping with Celeste or Kayla aren’t running through my head.

  “I’m not a skank!” protests Celeste, making a fake sad face. “You’re a whore, Whore,” she says with a giggle.