That feeling when you beat your best running time, your crush texts you, and you have no homework whatsoever.
That’s me right now.
...well, except for the crush thing. Nobody in my life is remotely crush material, and even if they were, no one would like me back...oh, and I have an essay to write on a famous entrepreneur due Monday that I forgot about completely until yesterday.
So I guess only the running thing is true.
How nice.
My day: COVID-19 Spring Break
I never fully appreciated my family's trips until I was stuck inside 24/7, allowed to leave the house to go for a run or take a walk on the same endless 1.57 mile loop where I live.
The schedule I made for Monday, my first day of "Spring Break":
Morning
7:30 to 8:30 - Wake up, breakfast, shower/get dressed
8:45 to 9:15 - Spanish homework
9:20 to 10:00 - Work on essay
10:00 to 10:30 - Math
10:30 to 11:00 - Finish things on the rest of my to-do list
11:20 to 12:00 - Free time, do productive activities of choice
12:05 - Lunch
Afternoon
2:00 - Run
Shockingly, that didn't end up happening...
***
What I actually did:
7:15 - My alarm went off, I fell back asleep
8:15 - Drowsily clambered out of bed, ate cereal for breakfast, took a scalding shower (way too hot, as usual)
8:45 - Downloaded Draw Climber on my phone, and discovered another addictive video game called aquapark.io. "Momentary" obsession.
8:58 - Attempted Spanish homework
8:59 - Watched YouTube
9:25 - Started planning a video I wanted to make with my sister, entitled 'Top Ten Scariest Places on Earth'
9:26 - Realized the world is full of so many fascinatingly creepy places
9:27 - Resumed planning 'Top 35 Scariest Places on Earth' video
11:05 - YouTube break, because reading about almost-ghost towns that didn't quite earn the title of 'ghost town' since five people wouldn't abandon their graffitied town with a fifty-year-old fire burning under it was emotionally draining, so watching Lexi Hensler and Ben Azelart see who could gain the most weight in 24 hours was therapeutic
11:15 - Continued reading up on the Willard Insane Asylum and why people weren't so eager to sustain its torturous methods of "curing" people, glancing outside every so often at the beautiful weather, wondering why the forecast said it would snow when the sky seemed pretty far from it
12:05 - Crept downstairs for lunch, substituting the concept of 'nutritious and delicious food' for 'lazy girl wanting the fastest method of producing an edible meal'
12:10 - Inhaled my lunch and played more mindless video games, telling myself to uninstall aquaparks.io during the ads, yet clicking PLAY as soon as the promotions for sudoku.com flashed off the screen
12:30 - Blasted my allegedly annoying reggaeton music (99% of the songs by the band CNCO) while learning about an abandoned town in Namibia that has houses filled with sand. Neglect and Latin pop are a great combination.
1:48 - Was kicked out of my room so my sister could start her virtual ballet lesson (three minutes late)
2:20 - Finally changed into my running clothes after sitting on the bathroom floor for half an hour failing at navigating my video game character down a water slide (aquapark.io? Maybe...)
2:35 - Returned from my run feeling slow and sluggish, wishing I had valid excuses for my weak performance because "I'm coming down with a case of coronavirus that I caught from the people that cross the street when they see me" probably won't cut it.
2:45 - Kept planning the video that probably would never happen, at the rate we were going.
4:30 - Went for a walk with my sister, and only then did it start snowing, the sunny sky filling with clouds for the first time the whole day, proving the forecast right at the worst possible time.
6:08 - Took the trash outside to the bear box, forgoing the notion of shoes, (because the extra minute of untying my quadruple knotted laces is a minute too long), and thus freezing my feet as I walked through the freshly snow-covered driveway.
6:24 - My sister and I began our dance progression video (her attempting to teach me how to dance) but she does lyrical, ballet, and acro, and I run. There is nothing graceful about pounding along a track or dirt path, splashing through puddles and caking my legs in mud, which might be partially why I failed so horrifically at dancing. That and the fact that reggaeton music doesn't exactly scream graceful!
7:15 - Dinner.
7:49 - I escaped to my room and proceeded to watch YouTube for two hours until forced to start getting ready for bed (WHY PARENTS?!!!!!!! It's vacation, I can sleep in! Even if I probably won't...)
10:15 - Got in bed too early for my liking, and started recording my day in my bent red notebook with the finicky pen that kept springing apart, leading me to discover that the cheap plastic had cracked. But my laziness (as usual) got the better of me and I stayed in bed, trying to use the broken pen.
10:58 - My sister announced it was time to go to sleep, and from the amount of time it took me to write down what happened my day, I realized that my initial plan to do that every night going forward was not a smart one.
11:31 - I laid awake some more, staring at the ink smudge on the ceiling (...not my doing...) that I kept mistaking for a spider, causing me to sit up, bump my head on the wall and flick on the reading light sitting next to me and find that it was not, in fact, a spider. Perfect.
12:00 - "Happy New Year!" Wait...no...it's April. COVID-19 + inability to fall asleep = pure insanity. Everything I needed to do started spiraling through my head...the essay I forgot about, the Spanish homework I did for a whole minute...everything else cluttered on my to-do list, which I felt productive for having even though I added quite a bit more to it than I took off. My final thought before I fell asleep was well. It looks like it's going to take a lot more than a pandemic to cure me of procrastination.
Childhood
You reach the moment in your life when you realize you are no longer a child.
What is it that kills childhood? Is it a defining moment that all people share, when what once mattered transforms into nothing?
A choice? Is it unique to each individual, a climax one can't take back? A conscious choice serving as a covenant, unbreakable?
It is an obligation? A rule, something that must be abandoned before adulthood is achieved?
We have no choice, a voice calls to us all. It is inevitable.
Whether permitted by the conscious, embraced by the teenager, or dying as we see the youth thrive in others, it's a universal understanding that all children must grow up. And to do that, the child inside dies. We must bury it with imagination, watch it find the fate of Titanic, where its remains may be mourned by the soul.
Or perhaps, childhood never dies, and a part of it still lives inside of us.
We just have to find it.
everything.
We talk without words.
Lips soft and strong hold me like arms that carry all of the darkest things I’ve burdened you with. And still you stay, hands brushing against cheeks and through my hair. You tuck strands behind my ear and tuck me under your arm so that I can feel as safe and warm as the first night you drove me home. And that’s exactly what you became; my forever home. Your chest, the safest place to lay my head. Eyes so blue that they bring calm after every storm.
And I love you I love you I love you.
In bowling alleys and at kitchen tables and while you brush your teeth. It takes everything in me not to say it every second.
“Oh sweet girl.” The sigh in her mother’s voice made her heart splinter just a little. “It’s not supposed to be this way. He’s not supposed to want to see you hurt.”
Her grip on the phone tightened, like the way her mother’s arms would tighten around her if there weren’t thousands of miles separating them. She couldn’t breathe, but didn’t trust that she’d be able to take a gulp of air without a sob catching in her throat.
“He should be using caring words and gentle hands, there shouldn’t be fear or guessing games.”
There was a pushing on her chest, the weight of spending months under his control finally closing in. She shook her head violently, struggling to process what her mother was inevitably about to say.
“I know you don’t want to hear this... I know how bad this hurts, and I’m so sorry, love. But this isn’t good for you. He isn’t good for you. And you need to get out. Now.”
You asked tonight if I hate you.
I still do not know if you were kidding.
You kid a lot.
We both do.
But you especially.
I was surprised.
I asked what made you ask.
You shrugged.
Something about a bad vibe.
Something about earlier.
Something about my eyes.
I combed through my memory.
I had purposefully avoided you,
So that I did not have to watch
you and her together.
But you must have been paying
very close attention to have
picked up on a vibe from that.
And when I did see you,
we talked and we bickered playfully
in soft flirting tones
like always.
Something about my eyes.
I told you that no, I do not hate you.
But there was a lot that I didn’t tell you.
Because of course I don’t hate you,
I couldn’t.
There are other things I hate.
I hate that she steals you away.
I hate that even with her boyfriend
only a couple of hours away,
she is pursuing you, worming her way
into conversations, cutting me out of
your circle.
I hate that I was identified as a threat,
I hate that this means she pounces
every time you come my way.
I hate that she feels she has a claim over you.
I hate that you’re too good to tell her
to get lost.
I hate my pride.
I hate my stubborn pride.
This proud wall I have up.
I hate that I will choose my pride
over you
over anyone
every time.
I hate that I can’t just tell you
that I’m fairly certain I’ve been
in love with you
since the first second I saw you.
My friends ask,
how hard could it be?
Just say it.
But my pride,
remember?
So I settle for a
no, of course I don’t hate you.
I ask if you hate me.
You laugh. No. Not even close.
Good.
I let my eyes linger.
Yours do the same.
Something about my eyes,
wasn’t that what you said?
