Get Away

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Contest #36 10APR2020 Dear Diary  by Cynthia Cronan (clcronan) 

OCT1997 Dear diarrhea - 

my mum gave me this stupid diary because SHE thinks it will help me sort me feelings. I say fuck my stupid feelings, why won’t she just get away from me?! no one gives a shit anyway. like stupid Mickey the Rat. He thinks he’s so funny and all the kids at school think so too. But I hate him. I wish I could stab him in the back of his stupid head with my pen whenever I have to sit behind him in math. I hate math. He knows it too, and he makes fun of me everyday for not being able to answer the teacher. He makes everyone laugh at me. Even the stupid teacher. I hate her too. And I hate you, you friggin stupid book with the lamest possible lock ever! Get away from me!!!!!!!! Enjoy life at the bottom of an underwear drawer!!!!!!

DEC2003 Dear Diary

I nearly cried in school again today. I can’t deal with all the freaks around me acting so happy. The girls are giddy all the time, and I hate giddy. Even the boys are joking around more and pushing each other around the hallways like that is fun or something. It’s absolutely beyond annoying. Who cares if it’s a god damn holiday season? I don’t. My mother has decided we should “get away.” I can’t even believe she doesn’t get that SHE is the one I need to get away from! I hate that I know already how hard it’s going to be not seeing my gorgeous Mickey for two whole weeks. He’s the reason I almost cried. I missed another chance to say hi to him as we were all leaving rehearsal. He doesn’t even know I’m alive. But I guess nobody really does so whatever. Sometimes I wonder if I even am alive. I guess I’d better go pack. I hate all my clothes.

FEB2009 Dear Diary

Why ever would someone voluntarily go to a masters level graduation? Mother insists. Something along the order of, “After all we’ve been through to reach this finish line, you better believe we are going to see it through to the end.” Forecast says rain and she claims nothing could stop her from seeing me get that diploma in my hand. She certainly can be dramatic. Always going around with her theatrical recounting of life’s trials as if anyone is ever listening. She’s quite silly that way, I suppose that’s why I humor her. Poor thing is so oblivious. At any rate, as soon as the insufferable event is over, Mickey says we will head straight to the airport for a well deserved get away. He’s so romantic. I bet he’s planned the most heavenly get away ever. We are so in love.

APR2015 Dear Diary

My mother said she couldn’t possible get away to be here for the due date. Blah, blah, drama, drama, can’t be sure when babies come, blah, blah, sciatica, blah, blah, golf, and so on. I don’t think she even remembered to ask how I was getting on. And Mickey is no better, off to Hong Kong, off to Kiev, off to Bombay, off to save the world by teaching everyone how to keep up with the latest technology. I often think he’d be a lot more interested in this baby if it were a computer program. Not to worry, once “Jr” arrives, he won’t be able to tear himself away. We will finally be the family I just know we can be.

JUN2021 Dear Diary

Two months til Michael starts Kindergarten. I won’t mind getting away from that daycare. That witch of a woman could never quite see my point of view. She could not possibly be less sympathetic. Granted, with 5 of her 8 families being single mother situations, she must hear every excuse in the book for why people are late, but it’s just that it’s so hard to get away from the office. Stopping at the grocer for a minute on my way there is just so much easier than pulling Michael in and out of that infernal car seat contraption. I really wish child care covered the cost of a nanny, or that his father at least knew how hard all of this really is. He’s clueless.

AUG2027 Dear Diary

That boy will be the end me, I swear to god! Whenever I try to talk to him, he has locked himself in his room and just answers by singing that stupid Get Away song as if it holds all the answers anyone will ever need! His grandmother refuses to visit because he screamed Get Away at her over the phone and no amount of explaining can make her understand that it’s just song lyrics. His father promised to take him for a few weeks this summer so that I could get away, but, no surprise there, it never happened.

MAY2033 Dear Diary

Today while sitting in the hot sun waiting for the high school graduation to start, I had the saddest flashback to when you and I first began all this logging of the daily dramas that led to this moment. Mickey was across the way making everyone around him laugh. I felt as though he still doesn’t even know i’m alive. And mother isn’t here because she can’t understand why I’d put myself through such a thing as seeing “that boy’s father at a ceremony no one will remember anyway.” Through romance and studies, and babies, and heartbreak, and the arguments and the not having answers, there, through it all, was you, Dear Diary, recording the endless abyss of all the emptiness my heart could hold and never manage to get away from.

AUG2033

hey book i just found here in my ex-wife’s stuff

this my seem silly but since you’d always been there

I thought maybe you’d want to be here now

I drop Mike at college next week, and put this place on the market

He seems ok with it - hard to tell, really

reading through a lot of these pages made me see how lonely things had been

maybe that’s why I had to get away - couldn’t deal with it

anyway - I guess she finally did get away

from all of us, from all of it, from . . .

always wishing to get away.