Words. Sometimes. Maybe...: "Everything's Awesome For You!"

It was a little after eleven when I started pacing. I alternated between that and cowering under my covers, from what I don't know. A little before midnight, I was shaking. I curled up under my blanket and didn't move; I tried to focus. Everything was moving too fast, all happening at once. My head was spinning and an endless, repetitive reel of images were spinning in my head. Somehow, Tuesday night became Wednesday morning. I couldn't stop shaking and I started crying. (Because, like all my stories, I have to cry at least once; it's in my contract.) It was the kind of crying where I was choking on air and I felt like my muscles would give out from being so tense. My limbs felt heavy as I got out of bed. I opened my door and looked down at a hall of closed doors. I walked down it, searching for company anyway.

I walked through the unlocked door; Shae turned when I pushed her door open. She smiled and commented on how much homework she had to do. As I moved toward her and she saw my face, she asked if I was okay, what was wrong. (You know, the usual things you ask when losers in oversized flannels come into your room crying at quarter after twelve in the morning.) I was shaking so much that Shae asked if I was cold. She hugged me and I tried not to wake up Liezl as I explained what was wrong: everything was my fault.

I wasn't as quiet as I was hoping to be and Liezl half-sat up in bed and asked sleepily what was going on. I told her everything was okay and that she should go back to bed because she had class in the morning. She asked again what was wrong and told me to get into her bed with her. I told her no twice more before resigning and climbing, shaking, under her covers. I had my head on her chest and I shook as I explained. There had been a blood drive that day and pretty much everyone on my floor had donated. I, useless member of society that I am, passed out about five minutes in. My stomach had started hurting and then my fingers got all tingly and then the Red Cross nurses were shaking me and yelling, "Samantha!" I could barely breath as I said to Liezl, "When I passed out today, I didn't want to wake up." Liezl just rubbed my back; Shae wrapped her arms around me and put her head on my legs.

We had to write this essay for our freshman seminar. Liezl and I are taking it together. The essay was supposed to be a relation of our results from our Myers-Briggs personality test to our lives. I have taken the Myers-Briggs before and have always gotten the same result. While reading the description of an INFP, I always relate to what it says about my type, but they can never take into account how much of any one particular attribute I might exhibit and so the claims are broad and general. They have to be; they encompass a lot of people. But when I see the description of myself, I simply cannot see the positive aspects of being someone who lives only to please other people and will use any means necessary to avoid conflict out of fear of offending someone. I called my mother during the day on Tuesday. (I was crying, in case you were wondering.) I tried so hard to explain that everything was my fault. That if I were someone with a backbone who spent less time worrying about everyone else and making decisions that will harm everyone else the least and trying to make sure that the people who need a friend have that, I might be happier. I told her that it was my fault about Toby and my father and Nate and my self-destructive need to ensure everyone else's happiness, how anytime I didn't put everyone else first, I ruined everything. She didn't say, "No, Sam. You're not a fuck up." She said, "Let's focus on the positives! You're so nice, Sam. You're a great friend!"

I sobbed into Liezl's chest and told her that I didn't want to be a good friend anymore and that if I was different, the sky wouldn't have fallen, my father would be happy with who I am, my mother would support my choices, and I wouldn't spend so much time crying like a fucking loser. I told her that I was sorry and that I never meant for any of this to happen and that it was all my fault and that I was so, so sorry. Sorry for keeping her up and getting boogers on her shirt and distracting Shae from her essay and for fucking everything up.

"You can't leave us, Sam," Liezl said. "Shae and I would die without you." Shae nodded in agreement. "We need you. Becca and Christine and Lexi need you. Your parents need you. Mikayla needs you. Stay for us, but stay for yourself first. We love you, Sam. We need you."

Shae told me that I wasn't a burden on anyone, which was exactly the opposite of the problem. The problem isn't that I'm a burden on anyone; I work very hard not to be. The problem is that everyone else's happiness is a burden to me and because I try so hard not to be a burden on anyone else, I am a burden on myself.

I transitioned the conversation by rubbing my nose and then asking Liezl what she wanted for her birthday. I snapped out of it and reverted to myself; I made Liezl laugh and then I went back to my room. I laid in my bed until 2:30. I woke up at six. Then I laid in my bed all morning. Then I emailed my teacher, told her I was sick and couldn't come to class. Then I laid in my bed until 7:30pm, when I had to go to a meeting. Then I laid in my bed until I had to get up for class on Thursday morning.

On Thursday afternoon, I drove to Becca's house. I took her out to dinner and we did homework. She was in bed, ready to sleep, around ten. I put away the homework I was doing, pretended to be tired, and got into bed next to her. I had missed my Becca and I spent Friday shadowing her at Harwood; I saw Becca as she was in school everyday. She pushes away these people who wish to be close to her and doesn't seem to connect with a lot of people. I can't say that I blame her, that I'm any better, or that I understood why she was holding people at a distance when my relationship with her seemed so easy. I just assumed that everyone else could see her as I do.

On Friday night, I drove my sister and her roommate home. I pulled into the driveway, walked up the stairs, grunted a "hello" to my parents, and went upstairs to collapse in my bed. I got twelve hours of sleep and woke up exhausted.

The next morning, my sister and her roommate, Sam, made pancakes. After they handed me a pancake that looked as if it had been crumpled like a piece of paper before being torn into shreds, I asked if they wanted a hand. My sister said, "Your help?" Then I flipped her pancake. She just said, "Oh." A few minutes later, she asked me to come back and flip the last pancake. My parents came home from Home Depot and I drove myself back to school. I told Liezl to text or call me when she got back from dinner so that we could go out with Ellie, who was on campus for a bit and who I was itching to see. But Liezl never called me, so I proofread people's essays, which were filled with misused semicolons.

As I was leaving my house, I hugged my parents. After I initiated the hug between me and my father, he said, "Look! Sam's being nice!" I was too exhausted and drained to do anything but take his jibe and hug my mother before getting in my car and driving back down the hill. Then I felt bad; maybe I haven't been giving everyone the credit they deserve.

I really don't know. I don't know how to make anything better. I'm impotent, I feel, at effecting change, especially in myself and, honestly, I don't know what change is needed; I just know that this cannot continue. I will not live like this.