As Time Goes By

Let me tell you about the worst weekend of my life.

It started a week ago, really. When I realized I had a week to do a job that would normally take three times that long. I’ve been stressed out by it all week. It’s all I’ve done in my free time. And yet here I am, a little past 11:30 PM, with still an hour’s worth of work ahead of me if I’m going to get this done by tomorrow, which is the deadline. I’ve worked since this morning at it nonstop. I didn’t stop for lunch, didn’t stop for supper, and now, even after a hamburger, my stomach hurts extremely badly. Maybe I’m still hungry, maybe it’s just because I’m stressed. I don’t know.

It’s 11:35 PM. I’m so tired I won’t remember writing this tomorrow morning. But I have to do something to stay awake while I wait for the final few DVDs to burn. 11:36 PM.

One of my best friends, if not my best friend, instant messaged me today. She decided we aren’t going to talk on AIM anymore because of a thing with her boyfriend. I’m not mad at her. It’s not her fault. I understand why she’s doing it. But I was sad about it, still am sad about it, and probably won’t be really sad until tomorrow morning when I realize just how much I’m going to miss that. I was too tired to really comprehend what was going on. But, heh, I guess I do realize what’s going on since I have to brush away a tear that wants to form in my eye.

I don’t know why it’s there. It’s not like we won’t talk again. I see her at school, we talk at school. But what about after that? That’s what really makes me sad. She said it was inevitable that we’d stop talking one day, and this is one step closer. School ends in a couple of months. So I’ll ask again, what then?

I think you’ve been to graduation. You know what I’m talking about when I say “the line.” The line that you go through to say your good-lucks and good-byes to the graduates. That one. Where you get to say how much you’re going to miss them, how much they meant to you, how much you value their friendship.

I don’t get to do that. Oh, sure, I get to go through the line, but I have to act like I don’t really know her, like we don’t talk, like we haven’t talked for months. It’s a lie, yeah, but it’s a lie that she lets her boyfriend believe. Is it right? I don’t know. I just want to say goodbye in a way that shows we were more than casual acquaintances…that we knew each other, that we talked, that we listened, that we learned…and that I found a friend that made me feel like I was worth more than just being a thing to vent at or yell at or go to for a quick answer to homework problem.

It’s 11:45 PM. Sometimes I feel so stupid for talking like that and I don’t know why. I don’t want to dwell on the past or get lost in the future. I can’t change what’s already happened, but I don’t have to get in bed with it either, if you know what I mean. The past doesn’t control me. So when it comes down to it, for me, it’s never about what “should have been” or “was supposed to be” because if it didn’t happen, it obviously wasn’t “supposed to be” anyway. I just want a chance for the present to be right.

11:49 PM. My stomach feels like someone shot me in the gut with bullets that know how to swim around inside you. I’m so tired that I don’t even care.

When I wake up tomorrow, it has to be early. I have to get ready for church. No time to rest. When I get home, I have to work on the school work I’ve neglected for the past week so I could get this project done. There’s ninety chapters in the Bible I should read, but won’t. There’s four passages I should memorize, but will commit only partially to memory. Enough to pass, and for now that’s enough in itself.

I’m not asking for much here, at 11:55 PM. I just want a world where I can sleep for now, and maybe not have to act like I don’t know my friend. My stomach is still on fire and I’m starting to wonder if something is wrong with me. I just want to fall asleep and live in a dream for a while, maybe buy a house there, live there for a few years, make a decent living doing nothing.

See, in a dream, it all works how you want it to. I heard a song once. It said “I’ve been sleeping in for days/’Cause when I am awake/I will have to face my life.” That’s true.

It’s 12:00 AM. Happy Sunday, everyone.

I don’t really like being stuck in this perpetual haze caused by stress and exhaustion. I have to look for the right thing to say to my friend as she tells me we’re not talking outside of school anymore. I have to have patience and control not to snap at another friend with seemingly endless problems of her own. I don’t think she really wants a solution to them anyway. Just somewhere to vent about them, get a response from me, and then use it to say how much worse the problem is than I realize and that I nothing I suggest could be of any use anyway.

12:06 AM. I have three more DVDs to burn. I can’t believe I can still put sentences together. So tired, but probably won’t be able to fall asleep if my stomach still feels like this. Working, writing keeps my mind off of it. Everyone else is asleep. I sit here typing and waiting for another disc to be done.

The clock says 12:17 AM in the corner of my computer screen. The last disc is minutes away from being done. If I’m lucky, I’ll be asleep by one o’clock. Then again, this hasn’t been a very lucky day for me.

I might wake up tomorrow and wonder why I wrote while I waited, and maybe I’ll understand then. At least I’ll know that hands and fingers can type words even when you consciously tell yourself to open your eyes after each blink.

It’s 12:20 AM and the last disc is finally done. Good morning, everyone. Make it a better one than I do.