Tuesday, September 19, 2006

bird's eye view

She never wakes up in a good mood anymore. And the fact that it's so obvious to her makes her angrier. Her legs don't match her age. They're heavy and creek with every step and threaten to give out on her way to the shower. Sometimes she wonders if it's really just bad joints or something worse to come. She doesn't even notice the short walk from the living room to the bathroom anymore. It's all the same. These days her eyes are swollen and sore when she stands under the hot water. It's from crying herself to sleep - or just the lack of sleep altogether - although she doesn't like admitting to the crying.

It drives her crazy...going to bed just as the world is waking up. That's when she should be watching the sun rise over coffee. Getting a few miles in before her shower. It's not just the fact that she sleeps late. She thinks for a minute...dipping into the new-age-ness of it all. It's against her grain. Up with the sun and start writing everything down. Telling stories, working the day. She can't do that now. She hasn't done it in a while. And it is starting to wear her down.

Nothing seems to matter much. Not in a "could-care-less-live-or-die" way, but in a more complex way. It doesn't matter how healthy she eats, she can't make time to be healthy. It doesn't matter what she has for breakfast, if her bills are paid...she'll forget, she'll drop it all. She can't keep anything straight.

She can't make the precious deadlines she has, so she hates them. It makes her angrier. She wants to write all the time but the fact that she can't is making her want to quit. Quit writing, quit dreaming...just quit.

She tries to work on her other ideas. Numerous story lines, scenes, dialogue playing out in her head just looking for a home...for a page. She can't spend more than three minutes on any of them. They pop in and send chills through her - inspiration and creativity at work - and then they're gone. Instead, a horrible voice in her head starts a rant of how nothing will be good enough, there will never be time to finish. It's all pointless.

She's in her car so much, paper coffee cups pile up in the back seat. She hates her car now. She drives it when she goes out. Friends promise to stay sober - but they don't - so she drives. She's never home when she wants to be. She spends 24 hours a day battling everything alone - when she scores some time she can't stand to sit still...it's hard to read no matter how badly she wants to finish that book...she calls up a friend or goes to see one - just to remind herself she has more than this. Even if it doesn't feel like it.

But she is a perfectionist. Type-A indeed. Her work reflects it. Her studies reflect it. But her writing is suffering and she knows it. And it makes her angrier.

It all starts to add up... The night hours are reserved for work. Two days are promised to school. In between days are given to scoring any interviews she can, homework, writing up stories and researching. Everything else waits.

And it builds and it makes her angrier.

She starts to hate everything. Including herself. She gets annoyed easily and one might think there'd be no time for being self-conscious - but she is - to the worst possible degree. She critiques everything about herself. From her wardrobe to her hair, her body, her abilities and her choices.

And from a bird's eye view - she's falling...fast.

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