I wanted to be a child star. My mother signed me up for an acting summer program that I'd go to everyday, which was run by college-aged kids looking for a unique summer job. The program was held at a community centre that regularly functioned as retirement home. It was a windowless brick building with a great big common room. There was nothing in the common room except for a few coat racks on swivel casters and a community kitchen. Behind all the locked doors is where we knew they kept all the dead people.
I was neurotic, then. One time during recess, I remember swearing at these two twins. Swearing was one of my primary methods of expression. My dad swears excessively, even in casual conversation, and I can only imagine acquiring the habit through him. The twins told one of the counsellors about my mortal sin, and I was promptly placed in time out. Quickly growing more and more hysterical, the counsellors' job quickly switched from discipline to consolation. There were voices in my head, and a bomb in my neck. My birthday is this week, and nobody else knows or cares. You never give me the lead roles in these productions, but I am the central actor. Something wrong with everyone but me.
But I was neurotic, then.
I didn't spend much time playing with other kids. Growing up on a computer had a permanent effect on my social psyche. Chat rooms overruled baseball games; watching other people have fun is drab anyway. I would always ask my mom for obscure computer games, that came out several years ago. One time I asked her to buy me The Incredible Machine 2, and she said she would look for it. Failing to find it, she picked me up a plethora of other games in compensation: math games, really basic children's puzzle games.. but I knew exactly what I wanted. She couldn't fool me.
She eventually found it, and presented it to me one day on the way home from my acting program. I was happy that she had finally found it, but I was also exhausted.
Every day I lived ended in exhaustion, in complete mental exhaustion.