Why I'm Not Okay

In my previous entry, I mentioned that my life "hasn't been too great as of late". You may be wondering what that was about. After all, my vlogs and drawings are all cute and happy! The thing is, I'm good at putting on a brave face and seeing light at the end of the tunnel, but... I'm not 100% okay. I'm as okay as I can be right now (meaning I'm not crying), but stuff still sucks.

Specifically, here's what sucks:

Max is moving 600 miles away to Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

We found out about this on Thursday, February 21st. I still remember every detail of that day (mostly because I keep a private journal). It started out totally normal: Max brought a banana to school and pretended it was a gun; he held me "hostage" with it in karate class and demanded that sensei give him $300 (he could pay in installments); we got into a dumb argument over bacon; his friend from his robotics team texted me the word "yiff" thirty times in a row... Okay, "totally normal" for me isn't normal for anyone else, but y'know what I mean. Then everything changed when the fire nation attacked. So Max and I were talking on the phone that night, as usual, when he overheard his mom nearly crying downstairs. She kept saying "oh my God" over and over...

Then Max heard the word "moving".

He went downstairs to ask his mom about it. "…I'm not sure I like this anymore," he said when he returned to the phone. "Are you moving?" I asked. "She wouldn't say," he replied. I asked if she'd said it in an I-don't-want-to-tell-you way or an I-don't-know way. ...It was the first one.

I got really, really scared.

He left again after a bit to ask his dad about it. I couldn't hear anything for a while; then they got close enough to the phone that I could hear Max's responses, but not his dad's. Max kept saying things like "good for you", "that's really cool, Dad", "you do honest work every day", etc. He sounded normal at first, so I was optimistic. He'd say "yeah" at regular intervals, and over time his voice got a bit unsteady. He wasn't in hysterics or anything—nowhere near, he wasn't even crying—but knowing him as well as I do, I could detect the tiniest wobble in his tone. It was the tone you use when you're trying really hard to ignore the lump in your throat. By that point, I was terrified. I stared at the clock on my phone, waiting for Max to return and fill me in, but I had to hang up when midnight arrived. I didn't want to get grounded.

(12:01 AM) Me:  I love you, but I had to hang up or risk getting found by mom. Please text me everything you've found out.
(12:02 AM) M:  I have to move. To milwaukee.

…Oh.

(12:02 AM) Me:  WHAT WHEN???

As soon as I sent my reply, I tossed the phone onto the floor like it was poison and curled into the fetal position on my bed. "Nononononononononononono," I babbled, over and over. I couldn't accept it. It wasn't real. A waterfall of hot tears slid down my cheeks as I continued to text Max. I asked if he'd be moving before we graduated from high school, and he said yes, and I literally made a noise like a dying animal. It felt like someone had crunched my insides into a paper ball and ripped them out through my throat.

I hobbled out of my room, my legs trembling violently. I had to clutch at a railing. "Mom?" I called down the stairs. My voice was so distorted, I didn't even recognize it. Mom told me to be quiet because Tyler was sleeping. I didn't give a shit; I shambled into the kitchen and bawled, "MAX IS MOVING TO MILWAUKEE." Then I collapsed at her feet and dropped my head into her lap and cried and cried and cried. She put her arms around me and stroked my hair and told me to stop crying and that it'd be okay. She sounded really calm, but my entire body shuddered. I couldn't help it. Everything I'd worked so hard to build was crashing. She assured me that we could come up with a plan, that Max's parents wanted Max and I to be together, that Wisconsin wasn't that far away. She said that Max could visit and stay at our house for two weeks at a time, and likewise, I could visit him in Milwaukee. She said to just think of it as him going off to college. She reminded me that they don't know when they're moving, and moving takes a while, and it could even take years. "Believe it or not, I've felt what you're feeling," she said. "I know you have," I sniffed. She just kept reassuring me and asking me to please stop crying, saying that this was exactly the kind of pain she never wanted me to experience. I eventually ran out of tears and sat there for a bit, my legs still rattling, unable to support their own weight. I texted Max from time to time, but it took me ten minutes to type a message because I kept dissolving into random fits of anguish.

It took me a long time to fall asleep. Every time I managed to calm down, reality would hit again and I'd hyperventilate; my eyes dripped tears like a broken faucet. I had to keep flipping my pillow or my face would get all wet. And through it all, I kept thinking: He hasn't even left yet and I miss him already. I'd never be able to escape the countdown in my head.

One of the worst parts was this: From the very start, there was a section of my brain that whispered that Max and I were too good to be true. A corner always whispered that I didn't deserve him, that with my luck he'd probably be taken away, and I was right. I told myself that I was paranoid, but I was right. THAT PART OF YOUR BRAIN ISN'T SUPPOSED TO BE RIGHT. YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO TELL YOURSELF NOT TO WORRY SO MUCH AND MOVE ON. FUCK.

...Anyway, he was going to move as soon as the school year ended, but now he's not leaving until the weekend of June 15th. That's... slightly better.

I'm a lot more hopeful now. There have been low points, though. I never once considered cutting or suicide, but I did get pretty damn depressed for a while. I used to wake up every morning with the worst feeling you can possibly imagine in my stomach. I was scared to sleep because I'd wake up wanting to vomit. That still happens sometimes. I'm currently very happy, even within numbered days. Max has changed—for a while he pressured me to grow up, we fight more, sometimes I can see sadness sliding over his face—but we still laugh. I can still see the caring, funny guy I fell in love with, even when it gets buried on occasion.

We're gonna try long-distance. I'm pretty sure I can handle it, but I don't know about Max. I convinced him to give it a try (for a while it was set in his mind that he'd break up with me when he moved). I really do love him, and he loves me. You can see it in our vlogs. We're love-people and best friends! I don't know what will happen, but all I want is to be able to make him smile.

I just want us to be happy.

And now you know why I'm not okay.