This is a work of semi-autobiography and therefore should be considered fiction. Names and events have been altered. "Seven Years Bad Luck" is an ongoing series. This is part five. Part one here.
Somehow – and how could this be? – I had misread the wedding date. The wedding that I thought was tomorrow was today, starting in a couple hours.
It takes a couple hours just to drive to the right city.
I drive.
While I pull onto the interstate, I babble at Brooke, still on the phone.
“What – What’s wrong with me?! How could I literally look at something –it even says: ‘Saturday, November 3rd, 2:00 pm!’ I was even confused about the date! How can I read that and think Sunday?”
I’m driving 70 mph down the highway, continuing my mindless gush to Brooke, as I panic over this, for once, completely innocent lapse. I abruptly feel as though my memory has been full of holes lately. The deficiency has been disguised by the blurry fog that’s been clouding my brain, but now putting it to the test has revealed the weakness.
“It’s okay, it’s okay, calm down, Stephanie, everything will be alright! You’ll still make it in time!”
Brooke is fond of platitudes. It’s something I like about her, but don’t find comforting.
I begin spouting to Brooke. As is normal for me, I take this one event and extrapolate an elaborate causation and remedy, my mind barely on the drive. I decide upon the idea that what I’m dreading the most is that I’m losing my touch, so that’s the theory I run with.
Causal theory one: lack of career prospects. I haven’t found a good job since coming back to the country this summer. I've been doing filing in my mother’s office in the meantime. Is this the effect?
Even as I ponder it, I feel this lethargic haze dulling the edge of my anxiety. It’s a struggle to focus. Juggling driving, talking, and reading the mile markers, I still force myself to answer the question. How has this perception of lack of gainful employment affected me?
I’m afraid of losing what I had. When I graduated from my university, I had been so entirely burnt out that I went to goof off abroad for a year on scholarship.
But even before that. Though I over-loaded with both classes and the impending post-graduate future ahead of me, for the first time in my life I had felt sharp.
It was hell, but I remembered everything.
My schedule, small dates, assignments, times for random appointments, when what food would be served at the cafeteria -- I paid attention. Looking at people, I saw what they were wearing, what they were saying, and how their bodies shifted. Saw my surroundings too, noticed the cars in the parking lot, the landscaping equipment tucked idly into corners on the university lawn, the leaves on the sidewalk.
I had always wanted to be observant like this, but thought it beyond my nature. I was a ditzy and spacey kid, constantly daydreaming. My dad was the observant one; he was the ex-cop who could always see every little thing I tried to hide. He wasn’t a very reflective person though, so I assumed that my father’s sharp eyes had been traded out for my more inferior dreaming.
It made sense to me. A person could be either focused inwardly or outwardly. We were simply opposites in this fashion.
I thought so until my last semester of university, when it seemed I could finally focus on both simultaneously. My head felt like a hurricane, constantly awhirl with thought, but also extremely satisfied. Finally, I was not ignoring the outside world in favor of the inside of my skull.
Now, more often than not, a fog permeates my thoughts instead of a hurricane. I forget important details and dates. My willpower -- constantly working in college -- has evaporated.
I am losing something because of a change of circumstance. The added indignity of this is driving me hysterical.
The rest of me that is not paying attention to miles to go or passing cars is wildly determined to force myself to be better.
Brooke is kind enough to let me rant and let off steam all the way to Mobile, Alabama.
