Daily Dose: The beginning of the end

Yesterday, I began my last day on this planet.

For the beginning of the end, it wasn’t spectacular. Like every other day in recent memory, a groggy, morning sun hung over snow-drunk clouds. A few weak rays peaked through my blinds only to find me waltzing with my pillow to the music of my snores. It was two in the afternoon. And it was morning for me.

An alarm clock was my proof – it rang at 2:03 p.m because god knows I could use the three extra minutes of sleep. With it came the ritual of a city’s muse: I showered. I brushed. I ate. I drove. I listened. I moved. I listened. I moved. I drove. I listened. I ate. I worked. I tried to sleep again.

But I couldn’t. Though this day throbbed no different than any other, something felt strange. At first, I couldn’t pick it out. Nothing special occurred in between the little scrums of my existence. Nothing had changed. Nothing was different. All was as it was, which is a roundabout way to say unfortunately average.

I wasn’t unhappy. There wasn’t enough time for that, and certainly I was okay with the idea of day’s consistency. After years of tumult, I finally had a flat line. I needn’t worry about the troughs and crests. I was chaos tamed. I was predictable. I was expected. And I was exactly what we all hope for in the end – a life where we can sit back, relax, and do it all again tomorrow.

Yet I couldn't do exactly that: I couldn't sleep. Then as I tried to draw imaginary pictures in my ceiling, I realized the reason for my unrest. Earlier in the day I had signed up for my graduation photos. And this scared the shit of me.

There in my bed, I saw it all span in front of me. Faster than this sentence can be typed and certainly shorter than it takes a reader with their individual thoughts – does she like me, I should probably be studying, I regret nothing and that’s a problem because it means I haven’t lived - to reach this sentence’s exhausting end, I saw myself dressing up, waving to my parents, and walking off a stage like an actor after a long script that no one knew the words to. I saw a curtain close, people clapping, and what those next steps meant.

In short, I saw a lifetime that would one day end, a story that would reach a final period, and the emptiness of a white page after it all.

Soon, I will leave this place, this planet, this universe. I will no longer be a student. Then, after a million of little things that won’t matter to you and will hopefully matter to me, I’ll die. I’ll be no more.

The moment I signed up for my photos, this extant rush didn’t come to me. I scheduled the photo haphazardly, almost laissez-faire. Yet in my bed I realized that eventually, I’ll move, I’ll shake, and I’ll do. I’ll live a life away from these doors, doors I have spent the better part of four years getting to know.

And though some days I pretend to hate it, though I’m often suffocating under an avalanche of books, I’m afraid for when those doors close. I’m afraid for when the groggy, morning sun doesn’t hang over snow-drunk clouds, when I am not dancing with my pillow, and when I can’t write these stupid, little words any longer.

Most of all, I’m afraid I won’t be me anymore for it is here where I found myself.