Tuesday
04/14/86
These past few days have been surprisingly normal. Nothing strange or terrifying, no voiceless thoughts or unexplained events . . . I've calmed down quite a bit, and after once again rereading all that I wrote last week, I now wonder – how much of what had happened was just a hugely exaggerated nervous breakdown?
I mean, I was tired, scared, my nerves taut . . . I'm starting to hope that I was probably imagining and grossly exaggerating most of what happened . . . It's hard to believe it, though . . . I would love to be able to say – yeah, just nerves, imagination . . . But I know it's not true . . . lets face it, why would I exaggerate something to a piece of paper that no one but me is going to read anyway?
Toby has been just as normal as a baby should be – his eyes just as innocent as the rest of him, no dramatic changes, no wistful stares. He's serious and kind of quiet for a baby, but nothing out of the ordinary.
Yet, I must be honest to the end, if only for my own good. I've been having a sense of expectation, as though I'm supposed to do or say something . . .
I honestly don't know what. I notice it the most when I see my reflection in the mirror – I feel as though part of me that lives in that mirror . . . Not in a bad, scary way – it's just that I seem to divide in two – the me who's looking into the mirror just watches, but the me that's looking out seems to be feverishly searching for something – a word, a phrase a thought . . . But I can't find it. I just don't know. I want to know, to remember, but something within me keeps holding me back – like clothing that's too tight and restricts movement . . .
I hate this. I haven't even clearly expressed that I can't express what's going on! It seems that the world has stopped inside me, yet is spinning as fast as ever on the outside . . . But in me it has stopped, waiting for something to happen . . . And for some reason I'm sure that the something must be initiated by me, and me only! Its like . . . like a phone booth – however badly a person wants to talk to you – you are the one who must make the first call – they can't reach through to you, how ever hard they may try . . . did that make sense? Well, sense or no sense – that's the only way I can possibly express it . . .
My parents are going away again tomorrow night – this time warning me that they might stay out pretty late . . . .I'm not worried. I think I should be, but I'm dead calm inside – even glad. The only time I have to actually think things through is when I'm alone, babysitting Toby. With chores and homework and the never-ending busyness of the day, I hardly have a moment to myself until late in the evening. But by then I'm usually too tired to think straight, and there is a lot I would like to think about . . . all those questions I wrote down insist on haunting me and simply won't go away unanswered, so tomorrow I'm going to sit down and try to make some sense out of the tangled mess my jumbled thoughts have become in the last week. Yes, tomorrow . . .