Today's rambling: Liar
Written on Monday, Apr. 21, 2003 at 10:21 p.m.
while feeling a bit

Everybody I've seen since returning to college has asked me why I took the bus and why I'm not with Geoff. Did I really tell that many people? I just want to cry. More.

It happened the other night where, in a sudden epiphany sort of way, I realized that I don't care for Geoff in the same way anymore. Maybe it was due to fatigue and talking to Tim (because honestly, he's starting to disgust me just a teeny bit). Whatever the reason, however, I just sort of stood there in shock for several moments and tried to decipher where these sudden feelings had come from, why they had surged up so suddenly, and whether they were real or not. Still, just because I'd had this "realization", it wasn't as if I hated Geoff and didn't want to be anywhere around him.

He called me on Friday night, and then I called on Saturday. Ended up talking to Tim again, and I made an excuse to get off the phone because I just couldn't stand talking to him anymore. So then Geoff called me on Sunday night. And I barely said a word. I think I made him really uncomfortable, just by the way he was like, "Well okay..." and "Have fun with...whatever you're doing..."

After hanging up with him, I just had this panic attack. I don't even know what possessed me! I was just overcome by this feeling that I did NOT want to be in a car for 5 hours with him. Part of the dread was probably due to Tim going with us. I certainly didn't--and still wouldn't--want to be in a car for him for that amount of time. But still, it didn't explain that complete feeling of fear that possessed me. It was that feeling of being trapped in a corner and not knowing how to get out...My heart started pounding so hard, I thought for sure I'd have a heart attack. I was crying and worrying and even now, I just don't know why.

After a couple hours of deliberation, I called Geoff back but got his answering machine. So I left a message saying something along the lines of "Would you be terribly upset if I told you both to stay home? Something's come up that I'm not really comfortable talking about, but Mom offered to drive me back and I think I'll just go with her." Not a lie, really, but the man called back and ended up talking to Mom...which of course got one more person involved in the mess. I wrote a note and showed it to her as she was talking, telling her that I used 'family problems' as an excuse. Goodness knows we have enough of those, but technically I hadn't even USED that as an excuse: it was just something that was in the back of my head. So Mom was now a participant in the evolving lie, and I was just feeling worse and worse. The worst of it all, though, was at the end of our very short conversation when he told me not to get upset, that everything would be fine.

Have I ever mentioned before that I hate lying? I feel like such a damned hypocrite. I was so afraid of hurting his feelings by telling the truth--though how would I explain that?--that I just made up some stupid story to fool him. And all I can think about is what would happen if he found out the truth. He'd ask me why I didn't want to go with him, he would have reproached me and said that I could have just told him in the first place...but I know he would have been hurt. And after I hung up with him the second time--after he tried hinting that he'd wait and take me later this afternoon, after he tried to keep me in conversation so I wouldn't think about my pretend problems--I threw myself on my bed and sobbed my heart out. I feel like this is the worst thing I've ever done to anybody before. And the worst of it is, it wasn't really justified. I don't even know why I freaked out like I did! I don't!

So all day today, as Mom and I drove to King of Prussia and then later as I sat in a cramped bus thinking angry things about the rude girl in front of me, my mind came back inevitably to Geoff. Yes, I regretted not only having lied to him, but having taken the bus instead of going with him. We would have had so much fun, I know it. I think he and Tim wanted to go down to Pittsburgh, which would have been my first time there. I would have been really awkward and untalkative at first, but by the end I'd be sad that I had to part ways with him. I'm wondering if I was wrong in my "realization" that I didn't care for him anymore. Because at this point, I have to confess that there's nothing I'd like better than to just go up and give him a huge hug.

It's times like these when I feel like a really stupid, stupid little girl.