Troubled Thoughts- Part Duex

12:37 P.M. January 2, 2009
“From The Labyrinth to a Fantasy”
I suppose, little journal, you’re probably curious why my doctors think I’m a lost cause. Not that they’ve exactly said that, but you can see it in their eyes, especially Dr. Gwen. Recently, she doesn’t even try to hide that she’s giving up on me. I’ll bring you back to my session today and you’ll see just what I mean.
“Autumn, where do you see yourself a year from now? Do you think you’ll be living a normal life again?” Dr. Gwen said in her weary but surprisingly smooth voice, spiked with thick, faked optimism as always.
“What is normal, Dr. Gwen? To me, normal is what I’m doing right now- sitting, talking to a therapist for an hour long session. Normal is waking up and wishing to be somewhere else. A normal life is not what I wish to achieve.” She had her thinking face on. I could tell she was mulling over my ideas in her head, analyzing them and trying to think of a perfect comeback. She would do almost anything to get a real answer from me, rather than my constant rubbish and refusal to answer her.
“Okay, so then what would you like to achieve over the next year? Since normality has no meaning or purpose to you.” Her tired and smooth voice seemed to be lacking composure, even if it was only for a few moments.
“Personally, I’d like only one thing this year- to escape from this never ending, ever failing, trial and tribulation way of life. I’d like to escape from my own little ‘labyrinth of suffering,’ as my favorite author says it.” “Labyrinth of suffering” is a quote from one of my absolute favorite books, Looking for Alaska. Ever since I read it, the words haunt me in a terrific way. I think it’s a statement of beauty and pain all tied into one. The phrase explains how I feel every morning when I wake up, open my eyes and realize I’m still alive in this awful place. I’ve mentioned this to Dr. Gwen a few times now and she gets a little unnerved when I mention the story. She barely, but noticeably shook her head and let out a light sigh. I looked up at the clock; it read 11:13 A.M. Thirteen minutes?! I had only wasted thirteen short minutes with my rubbish today, not a record by far. I waited for her to ask another meaningless question, but none came. I watched as she got up and said, “That will be all for today. Goodbye Autumn.”
You see, little journal, this never happens. I don’t understand why she’d do this. She says that she can see me making progress, what kind of progress, I’m not sure, but she sees it. And then during my session she just randomly bails? What was with that? Whatever. It’s not like I really cared anyways. Maybe she’s finally realizing that I’m fine and that I’m just another case of teenage angst. You know what, little journal, I’m glad she bailed. Now I can spend the day listening to Senses Fail and reading my hundreds of fantasy stories. The only problem with them is that they give the illusion that life can have a happy ending. Trust me, it never really ends that way.
I’ve seen many an interview where authors say that their fantasy ideas come from reality, but I’m not buying it. Come on, think about it. No one falls in love with a mysterious and handsome vampire, risks her life on a crazy cliff dive and survives just to ruin it all and become a vampire herself. No one meets the love of their life due to a one night chance at the royal ball or the school dance. It’s called fiction for a reason. You get me, right little journal? If everyone’s life can be turned into a fantasy story, then I sure as hell got cheated. What’s my story? Teenage angst, therapy, the psychiatric ward at the hospital- must be the unwritten story that no one’s thought of yet. Remind me to write that one later. Trust me, little journal, if you had eyes, you could see mine rolling from a mile away.
-Love, Autumn Ray