Wait a minute, so you're telling me that everytime I hear music, I'll hear sirens?

No.

So why not?

Because we get better.

We get better.

My Dad used to say that it would be better in the morning. He saved Mr. Walker's daughter by convincing her that it would be better in the morning. He saved her because it was true. It is always better in the morning. Mr. Walker gave me a Strawberry Shortcake ceramic lamp for that phrase. I can remember being drunk out of my mind and not being able to black out, pass out, throw up, or get drunk enough to get rid of the feeling in the pit of my stomach, but I could remember my Dad's story about it being better in the morning. Sometimes I would just drink until sun up to get to the morning. Sometimes I would just cry myself to sleep, knowing that morning was coming.

That is kind of the way it felt last night. It was a droning, spinning loneliness mixed with a little fear melted into total maddness. It is not something easily explained. It is what I used to drink up, smoke out and eat up. There are not many times that I talk specifically about the mental illness for which I am cursed/blessed, but last night I got an overwhelming desire to change the way I felt. Anything, just give me anything to change the way I feel. I know why people kill themselves. I know that hopelessness. I know that powerlessness. I know why people who do not have a memory of their Dad telling the story of a girl who made it through the night, don't make it through the night. It is painful. It gives me the spins when I try to sleep. It kept me awake until midnight last night and I was up at six this morning with a test in Algebra today at eleven. I just didn't want to take the test. I didn't want to live in this farm house. I didn't want to be married. I didn't want to be me. I wanted to runaway. I wanted to leave this planet. I wanted to change the way I feel.

Swathed in the emotion, I did the only thing I could think of to do: called Megan. But she didn't answer. No one else answers their phone at ten at night, so I had to go to plan b: writing. So I wrote until I couldn't focus and started the new harry potter, well not so new, book 6--again. Then I turned out the light around midnight.

I woke up this morning, soaked in hangover emotion. It made my head feel like a weight, unbalanced and tipsy, like it was going to fall off my neck. Luckily mornings are a fast process for me and out the door to school I went: distracted and unattached. When Meg called me back today, she told me the truth. She told me that she has felt the same way for about three weeks. Maddness, total maddness.

I am not the only one who feels like this. I am not the only one. It's not just me. I am not alone.

I can feel the insanity in my muscles, my blinks, my typing, my toes when they cross. There is a reason people don't celebrate anniversaries between year 5 and year 10: year almost 8 is really, really insane. This happened at six and a half too. It went away around seven and a bit. But now? Now it is tenfold the feeling of seven. I am ready for year ten now.

I watched friend after friend pick up a drink to change the way they felt. Each of them did it between year 5 and year 10. Those who made it to 10, made it. It is soooo much like a novel. The insanity is like a work of fiction.

There is a phrase that is tossed around like frisbee. It what my Dad said to Mr. Walker's daughter in a cliche. It is the reason I will wait out this thing that is happening under my surface...

This too shall pass.