February 19
Dear Diary,
Haven't seen me in a while, have you?
Now listen, I know I sound different. I know I'm not talking like usual… things have been…well, rough on me. Next thing you know, I'm getting homeschooled and school sick ( get it? :p)
But seriously.
Now I feel bad for abandoning you; only to pick you back up now that I'm struggling. You're a diary though, so I don't think it matters. According to lots of sources (including my baby sis, and my younger brother and his best bud), writing here even when I have nothing to say will help a lot. So… Here's day one of trying.
I don't wanna have to repeat everything I've said before, but let's just say that lately, I've been on a complete shutdown. My family so far is the only social life I have left (and trust me, it's more than I ask for), and I've been delusional (in the worst way possible). Things aren't making sense as they should; memories feel like they never happened, the present feels like déjà vu, and the future, what's that?
Luan scrolled to another page, finding an old picture of her and Benny on their first date together, along with her entry below it. She smiled wistfully. He totally understood. She just needed time.
But that's not what caught her attention, though.
She zoomed into the photo of her on the left. The eyes… Lucy was right. They could see it in her eyes. The window to the soul. To hers.
Unlike what she saw every time she looked into a mirror, here, she looked… happier. A certain type of glow laid in her eyes, a charm she couldn't pinpoint. This was only a year ago, when they were freshmen and somehow… she looked younger by a few years beyond one.
Shifting on her bed, she flipped back to her unfinished entry and when the keyboard slipped up into the screen, continued writing.
If I were to see me now, she'd probably joke about how I look like a candle burnt to the bottom of the wick. Maybe even the wax.
But she isn't joking. My lifestyle changed drastically when I got approved for homeschooling. It's both a good and bad thing. At least now, I have more sleep privileges (to my siblings' chagrin), and I feel lightweight now that my projects don't involve groups. The only bad thing is that, with my panic attacks coming more frequently than I should, Lisa advised me to stop drinking coffee because it triggered palpitations.
She didn't expect me to listen (lol because, come on! Caffeine is addictive!) So, Mom and Dad put their foot down for me, and so did my siblings.
"Kids! Lunch is ready!"
Oop, this is my time, diary. I'd tell you a joke about leaving and taking a car but you're a digital book so-
Bye for now!
"Man, I miss your jokes already," The dish clanged as Lynn placed the ninth one in the cupboard. "Come on, say something!"
"There." Luan laughed through her nose, glancing at her frowning sister. "I said something."
"Ha, ha. Ha, ha." Lucy said.
Lately, I've been practicing things to fight against my head. Every mundane little thing, I've been trying to make sense of (sometimes it's a bad thing when it's a body ache I'm psychoanalyzing). Guess you could say, I'm not really living, just surviving.
But I try.
"Wiwy, want fun!"
Luan looked down as the tot tugged at her skirt, her face pouty and demeanor downcast. A small smile graced her features. I'll try.
Even if it's just a recycled joke I made two years ago. It was newborn Lily's favorite. "What do you call the place infants live? Baby-lawn!"
Lily laughed at anything anyway; she was too young to understand how much it meant to her. How much it disappointed her that she didn't feel good hearing the laughter. Not when the joke was unoriginal, and her delivery was flat.
Putting her down when she got fussy, Lily babbled and rushed back to her room. In just a few months, she was already such a pro at walking and pranking.
Baby steps.
Back to square one. I have to relearn everything I learned from clown school, from all my years of academic research, pranking, and stand-up. It's harsh, but… I'll get there. Hopefully.
Heck, it doesn't even matter at this point. All she wanted was to feel alive again.
Not a second later, as she hovered a hand over her doorknob, Lily called her from her room. "Take a wook!"
Her head was aching as it had since the first dizzy spell began; she always thought it was something crazy, like a tumor, but Lisa checked it constantly to reassure her it was just stress…
Speaking of Lisa…
The girl walked out of the room, her hair stuck out like chicken wings and her face painted with blue powder. She grumbled through the towel she wiped on her face before pulling it down, her glasses following, dropping to her nose. "She takes after you." Lisa simply said, before passing her by and trudging down the stairs.
Lily peeked out of the door, stifling a cheesy laugh. The way she looked so accomplished with herself… aww. "Wiwy pwanked!"
Isn't it ironic? Luan smirked, going up to Lily and ruffling her hair. The baby's teaching the master now. "Good job, Lil'ster, but you still have a long way to go before you become a graduate in the world of pranking!"
And hopefully, unlike me, you won't lose it in the blink of a month of self-inflicted torture.
My siblings paid no mind over me being left out of having real-time classes; if anything, they feel a little bad for me. Not having to enjoy the social aspect of school and everything. No clubs, friends, and all.
But with the amount of people in this house, I think I got company enough. Besides, who said I would only hang with the thespians at school?
She opened the door to her room, and found Luna on her bunk bed with her study table out, chewing her pen with a furrowed brow.
Their eyes locked and Luna dropped the pen, beaming at her. "You're so lucky you don't get to do these." She narrowed her eyes in mock spite.
"Trust me, it'll take a lot for you to get where I am." Luan rolled her eyes, deftly approaching their bed. She leaned onto the edge of the bunk, peeking at the notebook Luna had splayed out on the table. "What's this about?"
"Oh, don't worry about it- I got it covered," Luna said passive-aggressively, though there was a twitch in her scoff betraying it all.
She peered over her God-awful handwriting. Geeze, learn to write if you wanna write songs, dang. "Is this…" Luan squinted her eyes and turned her head to the side. "Theodore? Who's Theodore? Roosevelt?"
"That's theater, ya goof." She snorted, doodling notes on the other end of the notebook. "When I said I liked music, I didn't mean show tunes."
A pun. Perfect opportunity. Luan thought… sadly nothing was coming in. Poof. "What happened to the music whiz, huh?" She cocked a challenging brow.
"Whoever said I was a music whiz?" Luna waved her hands around sarcastically, earning her an amused scoff from Luan. "I dunno anything about this sorta stuff but it so happens that I got a roomie that's one! Surely, she would've loved to help out!"
Luan shook her head with a smirk. She knew what she was doing, and a part of her hated it. Like rubbing salt to her sore cut. "I could help you but you just insulted my pride; you're on your own, Lunes."
"Come on, dude, please?" Luna's tone shifted now. "Just this once? I owe you this big!"
She frowned. "You know I haven't been in a creative spirit lately, how am I supposed to get that done?"
Luna scoffed in disbelief. "Says the one who won second in the division! Best scriptwriter too!" Luan scratched the back of her neck sheepishly. She just got lucky with that one. "Besides, it could help ya get in touch with yourself again. Doesn't have to involve that much brain. I just need to know if this song I wrote from the proj is theater-y enough?"
"Fine," Luan said exasperatedly, though her smile betrayed her. "I can work with that."
"Thanks, sis! Le'me know whatcha think later!" Luna hopped down the bed and grabbed her axe. "I'll be off in the garage if ya need somethin'."
She sat down on the bed as Luna closed the door, her eyes passing by a photo frame of her. Luan stared at it for a second, before pulling it close. It was a recent photo; one she took a few months before in the summer with Benny.
How funny it was. Two months felt like two years. Two months and she's aged five.
They were at the same photo booth where they ended their first date. She leaned in closer to her face. The goofy facial expressions she made. The duck lips, the peck on his cheek, the wink.
The photos themselves were crisp and saturated clear, yet in her head, the sounds of their laughter, the jokes they shared in there, were faint, faded. Like a rolling movie from the 50s that grew discolored with time. She frowned. There was something about her poise here, her face that screamed life.
You don't realize how fast summer ends until the last leaf falls off the tree.
And here we go again.
In one of the photos, she had her Groucho Marx glasses on, and Benny's laugh was frozen in time. The energy in it, in her, dang; was this really how I was like?
Back to contemplating what was, what could've been, and what should've been.
Luna and her had talked it out, and she opted to reach out to Lisa about this. Safe to say, the girl's done a lot of tests to conclude that no, she wasn't mentally ill, but yes, she was struggling severely. Lisa asked her what she remembered the past few months, anything really, all she could respond with was that she had a headache she thought was a tumor, and a thump in her chest that made her believe she had heart disease. No happy events? No happy memories? No…
It disheartened Lisa, she could see it in her face, the disappointment behind it. Even she missed that side of her, and though that should've made her heart swell, and though she should've brushed her hair and reassured her she was okay, Luan couldn't. She couldn't feel anything for it. "You're struggling to process your emotions," Lisa frowned, showing a rare moment of sadness. "A part of your mind has decided to cut itself out. This mental state is called dissociation, which has two branches; both of which you seem to struggle with."
And there it was. Luan returned the frame to the nightstand. She'd lost her identity.
Her other siblings overheard this and barged in, trying to alleviate her mood by reminding her of everything. Her business, stand-up comedy, theater plays, and even her long-abandoned EyeTube channel. She grinned at them, squeezed through the crowd of meddling siblings, and rushed into the room that day, wheezing through a mild attack. 'I still remember,' she'd told them. Refreshing helps, I appreciate it, you guys.
Only it did otherwise.
Oh right, Luna's project.
She picked up the idle notebook and pen from the top bunk. In high school, she'd reached the peak of her success, yet it was also here, that she lost it all. It was daunting, and depressing to know where her ambition had led her. It went beyond her just giving up on school. It made her drop herself too.
Luan narrowed her eyes, trying to decipher Luna's squiggles. Lisa told her what she already knew; grounding always helped. Mindful feeling was the trick. Right now, she felt her temples throb, her eyes aching from squinting too much. The plastic cover of the notebook, the jagged holes poked into it, brushing on the pad of her fingers. It was the little things that counted now, even if, even the little things felt so distant and dreamlike.
In due time, she could only hope things go back to normal soon. That this homeschool program would help her unwind and focus more on finding herself again. She'll be back to joking and laughing and acting playful like she always did in no time. It wasn't her choice to break, and God, she didn't want that character development right now. But just like in a play, in the grand scheme of things, this will all make sense. Maybe all she needed to bring herself back up was to let herself fall.
Luan glanced at the photo again, locking eyes with herself, eyes shining with life. She didn't have that anymore, nor did she have that grin, or any feeling to push her to make a face that genuine. To feel that genuine. And yes, she did surrender, but that didn't mean it was forever.
It was just for now. She thought, blocking out the word resilient in her mind. Until the fall was over, and she mustered up the courage to stand again.