Intro, I guess

A Chapter by GregL

“I guess he doesn’t know that a schizophrenic psycho that has horrible insomnia and anger issues lives here, too” I loudly proclaimed as my sister expressed her worry for her friend’s reaction to the house in this current state. My sister -- Nicole -- has been living here for quite a few years now, and it seems like her life has improved since she met her now-husband -- Chris. Nicole, Chris, and their seven children live a nice life in this large house in the country, and now I’m having to join their nice, secluded country life. I guess a change like this was necessary for me, since I’m now twenty years old, currently can’t find a job in this crappy economy, and lack a college degree of any sort, and only a year out of high school. The holder of that wondrous title is me -- Greg. It’s really just short for ‘Gregory’ so I didn’t have to write out my full name in school, my teachers really just let me get away with ‘Greg L’ so I just went with it.

As I sit here awake, writing this story out -- which really isn’t a story, mind you, it is real -- I find myself awake at 2 A.M. on most nights. I’m usually playing a game or reading books to try and calm my nerves. Speaking of nerves, those things have been wonky lately. I can’t focus, I don’t want to eat, and I just feel so pissed off all the time. It seems like the most minute things have been irritating me lately, almost as if I were a woman during Shark Week. Aside from that, the ceiling fans are a bit too loud tonight so I decided I’d spend my time trying to write rather than sleep.

Now I wonder, how did I wind up in this situation? Well, I have never lied to anyone -- that I know of -- so I suppose I could share it. I think my mother had something to do with my situation right now. Granted it is not all her doing -- because I still have myself to blame. But I still cannot seem to grasp the idea that it’s not her doing at all. And I also think she did not do it intentionally.

She always babied me, I would say. I am the youngest of 3 of her children, so naturally I think I caught more leeway than I should have, but I have not been to jail, or had children -- that I know of -- I graduated with a 3.7 GPA or something along those lines, and even moved with her to Louisiana after graduating high school, which now feels like the worst decision I could have ever made.

Jesus, I’m so tired. But the ceiling fans are too loud. Anyways, I feel as if I encountered this problem due to what I considered success. When I was hitting my teen years, getting a girlfriend was considered success. Then when I got a bit older, getting laid was success. And now that I’ve experienced some semblance of teen triumph, I find myself not really caring for neither girlfriends or sex. I find more worry in my future and if I will die happy with no regrets or not. Seems like I skipped over the ‘owning a house, car, and happy family’ part. Well, with no job or degree, I suppose I cannot achieve those, huh?

Crap, some of the kids are moving around in their sleep. Every noise that happens in this big house scares me, puts me on edge. Especially when their bunk beds move and squeak a lot. Or when the wood floors and columns squeak and make noise. It is almost as if this house is trying to talk to me. Maybe this is why I cannot comfortably sleep, someone save me.

Oh right, when me and my mother packed up everything we owned in Georgia and moved to Louisiana, it was kind of a huge step and also a huge adjustment in my life. And yet here I was. Nineteen years old, no car, no driver’s license, no job, no college. We couldn’t really afford to get me a car and Louisiana was charging a small fortune for new drivers to get their licenses, I felt like I was trapped. The only place that hired me was the Winn-Dixie my mother works at, she’s been with the company for like 17 years or something along those lines, so I guess she pulled some strings to get me a job. Yeah, as a damn janitor. But whatever, it was a job. I had something to do in the meantime rather than listen to ceiling fans piss me off. It was better than rotting in south Georgia with those ‘people’ I graduated high school with. They were probably faker than obviously-counterfeit Yu-Gi-Oh cards.

Guess that’s all the time I have for tonight. Maybe I’ll elaborate on my time in Louisiana more in the next chap.