NEW WOMAN NEEDS SLEEP
• Tabitha Towe - our Vancouver girl
" I bring this up for I have at last given in to the fact that sleep is not a waste
of my precious time".

---

It’s hard to believe that almost a whole month has flashed by from 2002 but I feel as if I am already falling behind. It’s a new year and since I have just turned 19 years of age I am now a new woman. Therefore, I should have a new life set ahead of me, but then again, every day is a new day, why not take advantage of each day you breathe? Just because the calendar claims a new year doesn’t mean that after the clock strikes midnight on December 31st that our lives will miraculously change in an instant.

The reason why I feel as if I’m behind after three weeks is simply because nothing has changed for me…(but I must say “yet”.) Even I was under the impression that I would start accomplishing my drastic personal goals by now and recognise that, hey, last year is over and now I can suddenly alter my life. To be humbly honest however, I have not tried hard enough to find a possible way to turn around my old ways, especially in time for January 1st. It is going to take a lot of time to be able to do anything that requires so much effort in the first place, never mind anticipating a rewarding outcome of your efforts. Oh yes and let us be realistic, knowing me, I probably won’t succeed in my goals until next year, and by then I can change my mind and go through the whole resolution turmoil all over again!? Sure sounds like fun.

You know what troubles me? (By that I mean utter torment as an understatement.) I cannot remember what it feels like to feel well rested anymore. Seriously, I’ve nearly forgotten how to sleep. It is truly very sad, and so many others suffer from the lack of it. I bring this up for I have at last given in to the fact that sleep is not a waste of my precious time.
I actually miss out on more by being exhausted than I would have to have gone to bed a couple hours earlier. I always force my eyes to stay open and cannot possibly explain why at this point. Since my sleeping habits are so bad after all these years of running on a short fuse, I have pretty much trained myselfto be an insomniac. This fatigue is driving me up the wall!!! It’s not a useful skill to slip into dream mode while being completely conscious ok; why, I’m spacing out as we speak. My poor imagination is becoming a recluse, my inspiration is becoming discouraged, why else would I write about this? Nearly every day I wake up feeling like I got smashed by a truck as I desperately try to piece myself back together with my weakened limbs, dehydrated throat, and shit for brains.
Then there I am, unmotivated and half assed for the rest of the day, convincing my body it’s rejuvenated because I’ve pumped my nerves full of coffee, eventually pushing myself till I fall over like a bag of beans. I am awaiting the day I wake up revitalized with an amazing endorphin high because I actually have natural energy to work with.

I’m finally exercising and stretching to help relax me before bed and turning the lights off earlier. First off, I think I’ll start by coming home before am hours like normal people do. I just want to sleep sound at night so I may embrace the morning replenished to fulfill every minute of the day. (Boy, I even get human mechanism messed up.)
I contradict myself a little too much. I can’t even get to sleep, so how the hell am I going to progress? I say I’m ready to move on but can never be prepared for what the world has in store for me, or perhaps what I may have in store for the world. I actually once thought that I could take it all upon my scrawny shoulders-- ignorance really is bliss. The more I know, the more I want to know, yet the more frustrated I become with what I have learned, and really we know nothing. Nevertheless, one thing I do know for certain, is that I must get started today. What’s to hold me back? I look forward but do not move forward; rather I stay in my safe little place or even backtrack.

AN EPIPHANY
I admit I have a real hard time of letting go, in fact I know I do. I still procrastinate more than ever when now is the best time to use my time wisely. A new year has come and as well should I “become something.”
Funny how (and everyone can relate to this) when you are younger you are in such a hurry to grow up. I feel old at 19 and yet still too young to be 19. I’m completely out of place, I’m confused as to where my place is or is supposed to be. When I was 14 years old I looked upon 19 as the ideal age, the representation of freedom, the coming of age into womanhood with a respectful status in the world. The only significance I found was that it really isn’t that big of a deal anymore. I’m now considered legal on paper to do the things that I have been doing since I was 14 anyways. Big deal! All I wish for now is that I didn’t waste so much of my childhood by being in such a rush to grow up. I honestly would give up everything I had now to be a kid again - but who wouldn’t?

And I’m saying that when I still am a kid for Christ’s sakes! Not a comforting thought is it?!
I even feel in a weird way that I missed out on quite a bit of my teenage era, (nonetheless I still suffer from teenage-angst) for I always took being a stubborn and curious teenager for granted instead of just accepting it. I always tried to hang out with older crowds and I pretended to act like I knew what was going on when half the time I’d laugh my way out of things I didn’t understand (people must have thought I was easily humored.)
When I was younger I convinced myself I was older, and I’m only a bit older today, but I feel much younger now that I have realized what maturity actually is to be able to compare it and apply it.

Allow me to give you a small example:
For my 19th birthday I thought I should give everyone a reason to come out and celebrate. The people I invited would surely come at any excuse to party right. I had invited at least twenty -odd people out, people of which I might have known for a long time and since we had partied together on many occasions I considered them friends, (not that I was ever close with most of them otherwise.) I expected the traditional 19th birthday bash where you pretty much go off until you forget your name then get sick and daylight shows. (What a way of grasping adulthood) Instead of the inevitable drinking binge, I had planned a nice dinner where everyone could socialize with each other without having to shout over one another- and then later we would go out to a club where everyone could get absolutely trashed. Well, when I had arrived at the restaurant, only eight of the twenty people the table were reserved for showed up. At first I was a little disappointed, more so humiliated I guess at the fact that no one saw my birthday was an important enough event to come out to. When no one had offered me a drink and there was no little dessert with a candle on it I just sighed andI paid for my dinner, I was kind of offended, and that is pretty hard for me to admit because I often play the martyr. I didn’t expect anyone to make any sacrifices for me or anything, just that if it were the other way around I know I would have done something for them. Anyhow, cry-myself-a-Goddamned-river, at least they showed up.

Sooner or later I figured I was worrying about something that shouldn’t matter as much as the people who did show, that I couldn’t feel as if I was unappreciated. I felt like a total brat at that point and I couldn’t stand it, and that’s where I realized maturity came into place. A birthday doesn’t count for much these days really, people don’t even count their blessings. Plain and simple, Life is not fair, No one gets treated the same, Nothing turns out as you wish and that’s just tough. *That’s not being a melodramatic pessimist either, and I accept -finally. I learned the value of friendship through different eyes that night. I didn’t concern myself with what wasn’t - but to be grateful for what was. Perhaps it is so that I am growing up after all, for if it were my 18th birthday party and I didn’t get to go out and drink myself stupid, perhaps I wouldn’t have been able to enjoy myself. I got to look at this party as memorable because I remember who came out and because, well, simply I never ended up getting plastered. Huh, imagine that!

There was an interesting comment I read the other day about suburban youth in society with the influences of media on how it effects our progression or what not, especially seeing as they grow older and how their perspectives change. It was quoted something like “Expired teens not up to date with challenges past high school”…or something or other. I thought it was kind of a cute caption regardless of its weary gesture. It does actually apply quite well come to think of it.
So there we have it, I suppose then I need to get updated on the real world and must succumb to its humble grounding as a new found adult…as soon as I feel like acting like one.

And now ladies and gentlemen, I shall make a worthy attempt to call it a night. Hopefully someone is willing to hit me over the head with a bat.

Good night! Good luck to us all for the New Year.
© Tabytha Towe 2002
Previously by Tabytha
Previous moment from Tabyatha Towe's life:
ONE. TWO. THREE. FOUR
FIVE. SIX. SEVEN. SEVEN and a half EIGHT. NINE

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© Hackwriters 2002