We all know the drill. The alarm clock rings or some song, whichever you’ve decided you want to hate forever, begins to play. Through blurred eyes, you hit “snooze” and roll over. Two hours later your eyes open and you fly (or fall if you sleep in a loft, like me) out of bed because you’ve overslept. Again.
After throwing pants on (because sleeping pantless is always the move unless Mother Nature has decided to pay her monthly visit), you scramble together the world’s messiest peanut butter sandwich and book it to class with two minutes to spare.
You make it to all your classes and sit wide-eyed in each lecture hall while your professor reminds you of all the ways you don’t actually keep up with world events in the capacity you wish you did. Then you hurdle your body off to the coffee shop across Grounds where you’re meeting with an all too frequently neglected friend. You shut down the conversation after exactly an hour, apologize, and hit the library in order to cram write your class blog post due in thirty minutes. You pass the rest of the day like a zombie on autopilot, taking care of various assignments and following through on certain commitments….
And then it all stops.
You sit on the floor of your room and actually pay attention to that subtle nudging of a feeling you’ve had all day. And you realize you’re actually just sad. It might be disappointment or loneliness or exhaustion but it’s there, begging you to acknowledge it. So maybe you go take a second shower in order to cry without fear of interruption. Maybe you flip on Netflix because, hey, it’s easier to live in a fake world that requires no vulnerability on your part than it is to actively choose a mundane reality.
You wonder if anyone else feels this way –detached from the day, like a sleepwalker – and type out a flippant text to a friend about not feeling too great and then you switch the phone off. You pull on your dad’s old, oversized college sweatshirt with tattered sleeves and hit the lights. Perhaps people will think you’re asleep and ignore you. Climbing into bed for the night, you know you probably will just lay there awake with your eyes shut for the next five hours but you pull the covers up anyway.
But your phone buzzes – your friend says she’s outside.
Rolling off the bed and down the stairs, you knock on the stilled car window of the minivan humming patiently in the street with its hazards on. She looks up from the radio, opens the door, and pulls you into a hug. And you feel a little more awake to the day than you did before. Find those people in your life who are willing to join you in the low spots when you have nothing to offer in return and don't take them for granted.
