Getting Out Of Bed In The Morning Is Like Climbing Mountains

I used to dated a guy who had the day job. This was back in the day when I was working 2-10 PM at the convenience store. When I slept over at his house, he would get up at 7:30 or 8, stumble toward the shower and get ready for work. I usually kept sleeping. But some days, I had to be home to do WHATEVER. So I'd get out of bed and start the drive home.

I would pass people on the road who were headed off to work. Most of them wore this scowling mask of hatred. They looked really unhappy. I saw a lot of people sucking down endless cups of coffee. Smoking an infinite number of cigarettes. Heading toward work.

Other mornings, when I was out drinking coffee and chain smoking until the wee hours, I would emerge from the coffee shop around 7-8 AM and walk out into the world. In the summertime, the world has a drowsy, rainy smell to it. Sometimes, when passing people, I'd think, "I could do this. I could get up this early. I could be the day job."

Now I am the day job. It took me months, but my body has switched around. I just got put on a later shift, so I don't get up until about 8:30, but I've gotten up every working day for the last year somewhere between 6:30-8:30 AM.

Further back in the day, I lived the rule of thumb that you shouldn't schedule classes before noon. One semester, I consistently overslept my 2:10 lit class. I was angry if I had to get up before 2 PM. I couldn't fall asleep until 6 AM.

Now I get tired around 9-10 PM. Honestly, I feel tired all the time. But I get even more tired around 9-10 PM. This is how I know that I'm getting old. It's not that I have wrinkles or gray hair or drive a big boat of a car. I feel it in my own apathy.

As some people get older, they don't catch the apathy. But you know the ones that have. They're the adults that you looked at when you were a kid and said, "I never want to be like that." They wander around with blank-eyed stares, wanting the same things that all caged animals want: Freedom.

I have a friend who told me shortly after we met that he thought that I was all "Fight the power!" There was an indomitable spirit there. A passion for resistence. I feel like this is slowly dissipating into the gray haze of the day job. The days are blending together and time is marked only by alarm clocks and lunch hours. My days are all essentially the same.

And somewhere deep inside myself in a place I can barely see through a maze of cubicles, the dull ringing of telephones and the muted office gossip, that feels wrong to me.

But what's a girl to do? Do you trade freedom for economy or live in abject poverty? It's a hard question to ask yourself. And one that I still haven't come up with an answer for.

Do you know the answer?

Because I certainly don't.