| yay me!Today is my 5th birthday in xanga years! |
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| i haven't written a post this long in literally years. I opened my eyes this morning to the sound of the alarm clock. It was 5.00. I closed my eyes again. I opened my eyes this morning to the sound of the cell phone alarm. It was 5.15. I closed my eyes again. I opened my eyes to the silent sound of an inner voice reminding me of today. Today was the day I take my last two finals for the semester. In simpler terms, today was the day to meet death. To stare it straight in the face. To lift my fighting hands and play some hard ball.
I reluctantly pulled myself out of the warm coziness of soft sheets and covers. It was to be a cloudy day. At least as far as I could tell by the hazy view through the curtain of my bedroom window. An appropriate setting for what was to come. I despondently ate my breakfast--Cheerios topped with ground flaxseed and honey. In a sense I was eating honey nut Cheerios. But I didn't care. I could neither taste nor feel the cereal on my tongue. The only taste in my mouth was that of dark damp things . . . like dead leaves soaked in the morning's dew. I could neither acknowledge nor appreciate the fact that I was eating the most important meal of the day. I could hardly acknowledge, but dared not appreciate, the future of my day. It was dim. It was bleak.
Like all youth have for the first 25% of existence, I was to experience a day of firsts. Two college finals. One comprehensive A&P lecture and lab final and one history final. I even pondered experiencing a new first--cheating--but quickly realized if such a first failed, there would be a few other firsts I was certainly not read to experience yet. Preparing for these firsts ahead of me was a first experience as well. No matter what I did, brush my teeth, ponytail my hair, contact my eyes, I felt almost hopeless, void, empty. Like a cancelled check. I knew what was ahead of me.
As I opened the front door to take my first step towards school (ie doom) I stopped. The morning was growing breezy, and I could smell on the wind what was to come. I felt like Fiver in Richard Adams' Watership Down. Nervous, flighty, ready to bolt at the first drop of rain. Instead, I braced myself, turned on my heels and went to my room where I swiftly slid aside my curtain. The hazy view immediately became a clear image. A framed portrait of the unknown upon my bedroom wall. I brought the day into my room as if to taunt my future and even go so far as to invite it in for a visit. I smiled as I thought whether Today liked tea with one lump or two and imagined how the old fashioned cartoons always served lumps.
I landed on campus feeling like a cheap toy rocket after its first take off--cracked, loose, dizzy from the ride. I so happened to arrive at the same time as my instructor, who would be administering the first test of the day, and his wife. Dr. Lebed was wet from the cold drizzle outside and as he grinned and greeted me, he wiped has face with the sleeve of his sweater as he were the chief of a tribe smearing on war paint in preparation of the day's battle. It would be a Waterloo. But not for him.
Thirty minutes later I was removing my sword from its sheath ready to take on any caudofemoralis or extensor digitorum to come my way. I was prepared to crush the bands of Wilmot Provisos, Nat Turner Revolts, and Wade-Davis Bills to enter the battlefield. I was anxious to grab psuedostratified ciliated columnar epithelium by the neck and tie it into a knot (first taking care to make sure I spelled everything correctly). As I reached to grab my shield, the war cry still in my throat, on the brink of bursting forth and reverberating over the hilltops, there was suddenly the sound of rushing wind, a blow to my head, and I was rendered unconscious. I remember no more.
Seemingly moments later I awoke in my sister's car feeling like that cheap rocket again, yet this time I was taped up with a new name on my plastic side neatly written in fresh smelly permanent marker over older, faded, not-so-neat handwriting. I looked around me. At my hands smudged with pencil lead. At my bruise on my brain. At my weak limbs and my collapsed, empty stomach. I was breathing. I was alive. I survived.
My sister started the engine and began pulling away from the wrecked, still steaming battleground behind me. As we drove away, I took a few minutes to turn around and glance at the disheveled mess behind. There in the pile of ashes stood two large and identical capital letters. A and A. Two out of four results of a semester of polishing my armor and perfecting my fighting skills. I sighed and smiled and then cringed. My rectus abdominis had too much of a beating for one day and kindly asked if I would twist my body back to its previous position so we could all enjoy the ride home. But I didn't care. I could taste and feel the foods of education that had slowly cooked on the stovetop of my brain over the semester. I acknowledged and appreciated my hard work at playing education chef and warming my own alphabet soup. In its very essence, I was eating my most important meal of the last three and a half months. It tasted good. Especially the Os and Js.
When I got home, I entered my room to be welcomed by an open window. Still opened since this morning. The sun was shining and smiling through as if waiting to be beckoned to enter in. And beckoned I did. I laid on the floor in the middle of my room and soaked in the sun. I was doused in the light of its rays. The beams pierced my skin and lit my free soul. I felt empty and full inside all at the same time. I was finally starved of homework yet full from learning. I never felt so happy in my life. As I laid there and looked out my window, my eyelids began to fall then bounce back up. Fall, then bounce. And then fall, but this time not bounce. I was happily, soothingly, and welcomingly rendered unconscious. In simpler terms, I fell asleep. |
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| one quick post then back to work!I've come to the conclusion that I like antlers. On anything. Especially anything that is not deer (because baby deer, whatev they're called, are much cuter without antlers). |
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