✍ CURRENTLY WRITING FROM: SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA
Something that I’ve always resented about myself is my body clock. There’s no possible way for me to even try to be joking when I say that, on weekdays, when I’m meant to be getting up for school, I have a difficulty to get out of my bed. Even if I have woken up too late (around seven), I still am too sleepy to think about where I left my slippers or to remember that I have to put out the candle I accidentally left on all night; yet, on weekends, I’ve always woken up at around six, or five minutes until six. I’ve never slept in on a weekend. Even at New Year’s, if I go to sleep at five in the morning, I’ll be waking up at around nine in the morning. It is physically impossible for me to sleep in. Or take a nap. I think sleeping and I just weren’t meant to be.
Today was one of those mornings. I woke up at exactly 5:38 a.m. I cleared the cobwebs out of my eyes. In the private safety of my room, I stretched like I knew other happy girls in getting-ready-for-school movie montages do, and in my recklessness, knocked over the clock off my bedside table. I checked the time. It was 5:38 a.m. I wondered what was wrong with me. I touched my forehead. I pinched the side of my stomach. I checked the soles of my feet. I couldn’t find anything. Okay with the fact that it was earlier than usual, I plugged in my Christmas lights so as to not feel so alone in my room. On my way, I checked the color of my tongue in the mirror. I was dehydrated. And it was 5:38 a.m.
Sometimes I feel like what I really need in my life are white sheets for my bed. I’d be willing to conduct a study to prove that those with white bed sheets have better mornings. Well… on the other side, they do have much more cleaning to do, don’t they? And… they don’t get to drink hot chocolate in bed? And they don’t get to sleep with their boots on after certain nights? And… and… they can’t go outside barefoot to look at the moon one last time before finally giving up on the day?
My dad calls this thing I just did a “shame”. You just convinced yourself out of a thing you proposed yourself about thirty seconds ago. Nobody had to do that for you.
When it hit six-twenty in the morning, I decided to call my grandmother. My grandmother is a really stubborn sweetheart, and I like to think my mother inherited that trait, which I’m growing into as well. Every time I visit her, she tells me she misses me all the time. Since I used to sleep over at her house almost every weekend when I used to live in Mexico, I know that she wakes up extra early, as well. I also like to think that I got my own habit from her. I called her cell phone, since I know my cousins, who live there as well, do indeed like their sleep.
The conversation took place in Spanish.
“Hola, Mami Tere,” I said.
“Hola, mija! What a nice surprise, how are—wait, what are you doing up so early? What! What are you doing up so early! Go back to sleep!” I could hear the years of worrying.
“I just wanted to say hi! And it’s not that early.”
“Oh. Good. Because you need some sleep. You never sleep. Sometimes you have to just stop thinking. Or else your feet will hurt.”
We proceeded to talk about meatballs, the weather difference in Baja California and California, the news (which included some nagging about how I really really really should re-consider if I actually want to move to Europe after I graduate), how my hair has been keeping up, and how she has to go to therapy for her arm.
Before I hung up, she paused for a really long time, and then she told me that she really loved me. I told her she was my favorite person in the world, and that I missed her.
Even though I felt inexplicably guilty, I didn’t cry. I fixed myself hot chocolate (drunk in bed) and pondered on Paul McCartney.
P.S. If you haven’t seen the Perks of Being a Wallflower trailer—I know, I’m like the fiftieth person to say that this morning, aren’t I?—
then go do it! After having read this book a few years ago, and re-reading it a couple of twenty times, I have to say I could not be more excited. I am so grateful to the MTV Movie Awards for playing the exclusive trailer
before the awards to save me from actually having to watch the “awards”.