It is surprising and not surprising at the same time that the average resting heart rate is supposed to be under eighty beats per minute. I checked mine. One hundred and twenty, first thing in the morning. Consistent, if nothing else. I have developed a habit of checking my pulse before I even check my phone, which says a lot about me and none of it is flattering. Restlessness has become my baseline. Calm feels like a rare personality trait that other people are born with.
I just finished Downton Abbey, which feels like an achievement even though it is only ten at night. I am starting to feel tired now, the good kind, the kind that settles into your bones instead of rattling around in your chest. After school, I went over to Mrs. Shelly's place to help her mother, Maria, while Mrs. Shelly ran an urgent errand. We played chess. I lost. Badly. I do not know why I keep agreeing to play a woman with seventy seven years of experience and zero mercy. When Mrs. Shelly returned around seven thirty, she handed me a box of doughnuts as thanks. I accepted them with the reverence they deserved.
I live about twenty minutes away, so by the time I got home it was almost eight. Mum had already set dinner on the table. White sauce pasta, avocado toast, and broccoli soup. A combination that should not work but somehow does. Mum works night shifts at the airport, which means our schedules overlap only in theory. Some weeks, we barely see each other at all. I have a younger brother who is three years younger than me and in boarding school, so we see each other once or twice a year if we are lucky. Still, I think we are close. We do not always know what is going on in each other's lives, but we care, and that feels like it counts for something.
Dad died five years ago. Cancer. Three years of fighting, then an end that came too fast and too slow at the same time. It sounds strange, but thinking about it now makes me feel relieved for him. He is not in pain anymore. Mum is not either. I watched her become a full time caregiver, watched her forget herself completely for a long time. We miss him every day, but the missing has softened. It sits with us instead of crushing us.
At least I am not overthinking tonight. Or maybe I am. It is hard to tell anymore. Right now, my only real problem is me.
The ceiling fan hums above me, doing its best to cut through the silence. My room is not small, but it has never been good at feeling empty either. The faint smell of lavender still lingers from last night, which was a terrible decision on my part. I do not like lavender. I never have. Buying those repellents felt like an optimistic version of myself making choices without consulting reality.
This room used to feel like a sanctuary. It still does, in flashes. The walls are crowded with bookshelves that are double stacked and poorly organized. Some books are neatly arranged. Others are shoved in sideways or lying in small, defiant piles. My notebooks are everywhere. Half filled journals, loose pages with unfinished poems, random thoughts written in the margins, drafts of stories that never quite went anywhere. There are sketches taped to the wall, some decent, some embarrassing, all of them proof that I once tried. My desk is cluttered but intentional. Pens that barely work, sticky notes with reminders I no longer remember making, a mug that says I tried, which feels personal.
The bed is unmade. Has been for over a week. I know this because the fitted sheet is doing that annoying thing where it slowly escapes the mattress. There are cups on the floor from nights ago, empty bottles from mornings when I promised myself I would hydrate. My violin rests quietly near the bookshelf, gathering dust with dignity. I avoid looking at it for too long. It feels like running into an old friend you forgot to reply to.
I tell myself I will clean this weekend. I really should. Camp is coming up, and the idea of returning after a month in the wilderness to an unmade bed feels cruel and unnecessary.
Sometimes, the room feels too full. Not suffocating, exactly, just loud with memories. Everything here belongs to a version of me, past or future. I hoard memories, not things, even if they look the same from the outside.
When the air starts to feel heavy, I escape to the kitchen and make tea. Tea helps. Not because of the tea itself, but because it reminds me of mornings when Mum would bring me ginger tea and tell me everything would be fine. Back then, I believed her. Now, I am still learning how to sit with silence without resenting it.
Every day, I sit at my desk and try to think of something worth writing. I wait for inspiration like it owes me money. Sometimes I get nothing. Sometimes I get fragments. What scares me is not the effort. It is the possibility that effort does not guarantee anything at all. That trying your hardest might still lead nowhere. Some days, that thought keeps me from trying entirely.
Life is deeply unfair in a very casual way. Not dramatic enough to justify a breakdown, not kind enough to be ignored. I am tired in a way that sleep does not fix. Still, I lie in bed each night and wait for it to come. I have tried everything. Teas, herbs, syrups, routines. Maybe one night sleep will stop being something I chase and start being something that happens.
Growing up, I thought life would feel softer. More forgiving. Like the stories Mum used to whisper to me before bed. Those stories still exist somewhere in me, but they no longer feel like instructions. More like souvenirs.
Life can be a bit of a bitch. I think that is true without being bitter about it. It was probably always going to suck anyway, so we just had to accept that part and choose to love it. What I am starting to hate is the routine I have fallen into.
I walk over to the window and sit, knees pulled to my chest. The night sky is quiet and steady. I have always liked nights more than days. They make room for thinking without demanding answers. There are not many stars, probably because of the city, probably because of everything else. I sit and let my thoughts run without trying to organize them.
I am not drowning exactly. More like treading water for a very long time. What scares me is not that things feel heavy, but that I have gotten used to the weight.
On my desk, the camp proposal sits where I left it. I pick it up and take a breath. The rules section was longer than I expected for something that was supposed to be freeing. All of a sudden, Camp Noelle sounds like a savior. I told myself it would be impossible to have an existential crisis in the woods, which felt like tempting fate.
Maybe this time, something will change. For some reason, I am too positive about it.
If nothing else, Camp Noelle would force me to shower regularly and interact with other humans. Worst case scenario, I would come back with bug bites and a personality.
Or is it because the other day I promised myself that I will choose joy and as long as I can feel there's joy coming my way, I will stop just existing and truly embrace happiness.
So I pick up my phone and add my name to the list of people who want to attend the camp and volunteer. I see a few names I recognize. Some I don't. Kevin hasn't added his name yet. Though from what I remember, he did mention something about reconfirming if the camp would overlap with his practice. God, I hope not.
This should be fun!
Joy is around the corner. A change is around the corner. An adventure is around the corner.
If none of the above, then at least clean is around the corner.
Right?