Memorial Day 2010

“Can I borrow your phone to take a picture and send it to my girlfriend?” “Why does she need another picture of you?” “Her newest picture of me was from Christmas Eve.” “Alright. Here you go.”

That was the excuse I gave Lyle, an elder at my church, so he’d let me use his phone. I told him I was only taking the picture so Lyn would have a new picture of me. Yes, I sent it to her. But I wanted to take the picture to see how disturbed I looked right after a panick attack.

The previous day after church, Jason, one of my friends, had told me that the church was having a Memorial Day cookout at a school and wanted to know if I’d be there. He knew how I am generally anti-social. It took him four tries to get me to go to one of his get-togethers he has at his apartment from time to time. I eventually went. The four people there didn’t really bother me all that much. So when he invited me to this cookout, I was like, “Of course I’ll be there!”

I’ve never really liked being around people much. To everyone on PWP, I may seem “too friendly” (as someone has called me), but in reallife, I am a recluse and never get out. I can’t do crowds. Not big ones, at least. I go to the library to get online, but I don’t socialize with anyone except Drew (a library worker). I try to ignore everyone else around me. When I have to socialize, I usually lockup and don’t talk to anyone, preferring to sit on the sidelines and spectate.

I was at a friend’s house tonight (my only “hangout friend”, and he said, “Why do you flinch?” I asked him what he meant. “When I come near you, you flinch.” I asked him if I was just doing it tonight. “No, you’ve always done it, for as long as I’ve known you. I just never wanted to point it out, but now I’m just curious to know why.”

I was unawares of the flinching. If I flinch around a friend, how timid must I seem around the strangers at church? (I just started going to this particular church. The one I was going to before was four miles from my apartment, while this one is two blocks away...). The people there are still wanting to greet me, and I know for a fact now that I must seem panicky to them.

Jason offered to have someone pick me up, but the school was half the distance I normally walked to get to the library (which is two and a half miles away). So I walked. When I got there, I was greeted by a few people I still don’t know. One of them recognized me as a friend of Jason’s and informed me that he was inside in a room next to the gym, I went there and pulled up a chair. He introduced me to two of his friends. Don’t remember their names.

We sat there and talked (or, rather, they talked while I listened) and after twenty minutes, they called everyone in from the gym and outside to have a prayer before we ate. I’d known people were in the gym, but I wasn’t aware that most of the people was in there. They all poured out of there. The room Jason and I were in was filled up nearly instantly. We formed the back of the line.

This wasn’t even the room the food was in. That was the next room. We were slowly moving up the line and ten minutes later, being at the end of the line, we entered the MAIN room last. I lost Jason in the crowd. I began moving up the “line” and was eventually in the middle of the room.

There was no room to move. I am not exaggerating.

I tried not looking at the people, but the sound was beyond uncomfortable. I could feel my lungs filling with panick. My attempts at breathing failing miserably. My phone was nowhere to be found, though I knew which pocket it was in. I needed Lyn! WHERE WAS MY PHONE?!

Found it later in the other room. Too late.

My breathing ceased all together. I felt way too dizzy, and the room began spinning around me. Faces blended with other faces. I couldn’t tell which direction I was facing or even if I’d moved at all or if I was standing still. I felt nothing except the ground as I slammed into it. Even that was just a small blur. I was only vaguely aware of hitting the floor. My vision cleared enough for me to see everyone walking past me. They really didn’t see me laying on the floor?! I still couldn’t breathe, but I crawled until I found a table and used it to stand. The older lady sitting at that table saw me, smiled, and said, “How are you?”. I rolled my eyes at her (I think...) and stumbled to the long table with the food.

I hurried to grab a burger and ran outside. I saw a pavilion, beside which was the grill. There were eight people sitting there chatting. As I approached, one of them looked up and waved at me. “Sup?” he said to me. The others looked at me and waved. I timidly waved back and sat down on the far side away from them. They went back to talking amongst themselves.

I still couldn’t find my phone. It took me a few minutes to remember I’d left it in the first room, so I risked it and went back in. By then the crowd has thinned quite a bit. Mostly everyone had gone to the gym to eat. I grabbed my phone and went back to the grill. I had a text from Lyn saying she loved me which had been sent during the panick attack (we have SO many stories like that). I texted her back. I texted Rose and told her what had happened. She helped calm me down. She’s awesome like that (as everyone on PWP knows).

But she was busy for most of it (not criticizing. It’s impossible to criticize this amazing person and pure blessing to anyone’s life), so I texted Anne. She and I had a full conversation and she totally got my mind off of things and really calmed me down.

After three burgers, two hotdogs, and I-forgot-how-many desserts, Jason texted me. “Where r u? Have sum1 2 meet u.”

So I went back in and into the first room where we were before. There were five people there. I sat where I had before. Jason introduced me to another friend. Don’t remember her name. But we had SpongeBob in common, so we talked about that for nearly an hour. Then I saw Lyle pass. I remembered he had an awesome smartphone with a high resolution camera. Jason’s phone and the girl’s phone didn’t have a camera. So I followed him into the gym. I sat next too him and asked if I could play with his phone. He laughed and handed it to me. I played a Simpson’s puzzle game he had and then got around to opening up the camera. I asked him to take a picture for Lyn. I didn’t pose, though he kept saying, “Oh, smile a bit!”, so I eventually did, so it captured my post-panick attack look. The smile is faked, but the rest is still fear.

Memorial Day was a very memorable day...