Saturday, 02/14/04 - 2:58 pm.
I got terrible news yesterday and I don't really know where to begin. Actually, the statement is clear: Carmen is leaving medicine at the National University and she's going for psychology at the UCA (I study at psychology at the UCA, remember?). The reason is lame but very well understandable: her health can't take a career like medicine.
Having said that, I'm going to being saying that, at first, I didn't quite get it. Yes, my friend Norm wrote back to me, she is changing career indeed. "Oh, ok", I said to myself and to the world.
Two hours later, I started to come to my senses. Let's see...first the good stuff: she's very good with words when she wants to let me know she considers me a friend, and very thoughtful sometimes, too.
Now the bad stuff: she's one of the two that (in her ignorance) shred my psyche to pieces in 8th grade, and I still hatehatehate her for that. I feel uncomfortable when I'm around her for a relatively long time, because she never seems to listen to me and I'm never into what she talks about. She doesn't wake up anything in me, and I'd rather keep quiet and just nod, because after all, she can go on and on. She, like many other people I tend to call "friend" by default, have some kind of magnetism that affects my mood and brings me down whenever I'm around them.
And then I flashback to last year, my first year of college: I have four friends that make me feel good and with whom I have a lot of fun. In a word, being with them gives me that cozy feeling you're bound to get when you watch The Breakfast Club. Ok, maybe we're a little like The Breakfast Club, without the prejudices and its consequences. So it's really a lot cuter than the actual Breakfast Club. Neat, isn't it?
But then Carmen comes in the picture. And I thought just one single thing: my life is ruined. After finally fitting in a group, finding my enviroment, here she comes and brings all of the memories I'd rather keep locked up in a box under my bed. I see her, and I see all of her friends, who happen to be my friends, and I happen to hate them because they've made my life miserable since 8th grade, and they never even noticed.
As all those realizations came to mind, I started to feel anxious. I wanted to pull my hair and run down the street, screaming "take her away from me, I already have a life!". I ate like a pig at supper (it's a good thing I was by myself). It was bite after bite, almost forgetting to chew. Frenetically swallowing mashed potatoes and God knows what else (they were leftovers, that I remember) and then a bar of chocolate, and milk and then water and then another chocolate bar and chips and two long cookies. I was out of my mind. I almost began cutting myself again.
It took me two hours to calm down. And then she calls. Because, as nice as she is, she has to share the news with me, the tormented soul she nicely considers her friend. I don't want to sound hypocrite...I know I do. Ok, I don't hate her, it's not that I don't like her. It's just...I don't know. It's like feeling no chemistry or something.
Alright, she calls. She called to say Happy Valentine's Day (sweet, ain't she?) and to give me the surprise (which was not a surprise at all, as you've learned). She's changing to psychology because the doctor said medicine involves a lot of danger for her health. You see...she has a lot of diseases. You'll never see her without having to hear her complaining.
I understand there are people who are more fragile than others, and she must be one of the extremely fragile ones. I believe her when she says she suffers from high-pressure and many others things, but sometimes I get the feeling she's a tad hypochondriac, overreacting and complaining about 9 aches at the same time. But what do I know? (know why I don't trust her a lot?...she told me one day that Aerosmith was on the Ellen DeGeneres show -the sitcom-, and other day that Steven Tyler had been twice on Celebrity Deathmatch, and we all know that both statements are not true...I have in mind a lot of things -more serious things- she's told me since I met her, and I also have the proof that she was LYING to me).
Anyway...there's the possibility that she might be starting psychology, whereas I'm in my second year. So that'd be a relief, not having the same classes, not having to be with her all of the time.
I know it sounds heartless. But I'm trying to leave my past behind. It isn't such a dramatic, tragical past, but it left a share of pain (as in feeling invisible, not good enough, worthless) in me. Now I've found good people I really want to be with, the four people who are with me in psychology. I don't want anybody else breaking in that circle, the only social circle that gives me a feeling of security (yes, like a blanket).
Honestly, I don't want to share my friends and I want to center my attention on them, because they give me a feeling I rarely got at school. I don't want anybody in that circle, specially if that anybody comes from my own school, from my past, and was supposed to (and did not) make me feel the way my four friends make me feel now.
Get my point about all this?
By the way, I don't believe in Valentine's Day. She sent me a Valentine's Day card, and I thank her, for she used, once again, nice words about me. But I don't need that "friendship day" crap. The only thing that rings my bell about Valentine's Day is that on that day, centuries ago, a priest named Valentine, or Valentino, or whatever, was stoned to death, because marriage wasn't allowed and he was arranging secret weddings for the poor lovers who didn't understand that marriage wasn't allowed.
Maybe he should exist again, to join gay people together in marriage. History repeats itself. With a twist. Don't ask me what I think about gay marriages....no, wait. Ask me. What do you think about gay marriages? It's ok, I suppose. I never take every word of the Bible literal. I suppose God thought of the implications of having people falling in love with others of the same sex.
And this is all I have to say today. Happy saturday! or something.
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