The Things That Cross My Mind

Day 2: New Day

If there's one thing I love most, it's my beauty sleep. You see, I went years and years suffering from stress sleep. Stress sleep for me means that my body produces so much stress hormones that it causes my body's natural sleep pattern to constantly be disrupted. My sleep was like this. I would fall asleep for an hour or two and then I'd be wide awake for a few minutes only to fall back into a restless slumber. This pattern would continue the entire night. Because of this,  I  never got proper sleep and my body constantly felt in fatigue as if every movement, thought, or  well in general living would drain what little energy I did have. I often felt like a living zombie. Melatonin never worked on me and the only thing that seemed to completely oblivaiate those horrible sleepless nights seemed to be dogs. Ever since getting my own pup, my sleep has been thorough and I almost always wake up feeling well-rested and refreshed. However, if my body is under enough stress and anxiety, my sleep will be disrupted to a degree. Particularly if there is a specific event occurring the next day and usually results in me staying up late and/or waking up early. 

Today just happened to be a stressful event filled day. For one, I was worried about feeding the cats. Seems like such a simple task right? Wrong! Why do I say that? Well, I live with old people. Old people are peculiar because their schedules are vastly different from those of normal households. My old people in particular go to bed at 8pm and awake at the early hours of 2am-4am. They have an early breakfast, early lunch (usually at eleven am), and early dinner (four pm) and while I have adjusted quite well to their schedule, I have and never will be a morning person.  Feeding the cats means getting up early in the wee morning which I both loathed and stressed about. You see when it comes to cats, it's extremely important to maintain their schedules as closely as possible. If their routine is disrupted too much it can result in stress and depression which commonly lead to death. Not to mention, pushing their feeding times around screws up the whole day. So naturally I was stressed about the feeding time before I went to bed. In addition to that, I secretly wanted to stay up long enough to see a text from the old people informing me of their safe arrival in Germany.

The combination of these two things resulted in my sudden awakeness at 4:30 am and to my dismal, exhaustion racked through my entire body. I had quickly got up and fed the cats, loved all of them and then threw myself back in bed. I proceeded to toss and turn for the next three hours, zoning in and out of sleep until I finally gave up at seven in the morning and took my pup outside for a potty break. Thoughts of the events to happen later that day began to creep in my mind and made me increasingly anxious. Today I would go to my five hour shift. Doesn't seem like a lot huh? It definitely isn't. In fact, it's not even what I was anxious about. Today would mark the first day since my pup had been allowed in the house that she would be completely and utterly alone in my bedroom. My pup has severe social anxiety, seperation anxiety, and loud noise anxiety so naturally me leaving her often causes her great distress. Thus, I became overly concerned especially since no one else was home to help her out. 

As the morning progressed and I came up with an idea that would ease my worry, the time passed by quickly until it was minutes from my departure. I quickly gathered all my needed materials and set up my tablet with a video call to my phone and exited my home in hast. I have a habit of picking myself up for lunch before work and like some time to enjoy it before I have to open the store. The rest of my day proceeded slowly and boringly as I struggled to make time go faster so I could go home. Contrary to my fears, my pup did nothing but sleep the whole time I was gone which gave me such relief as I managed the store. The only exciting things that occurred while I was at work were that one of the guys managing the shoe station came to ask me about their music and a really hot guy with super awesome tattoos came in. 

Across from my store in the aisle of the mall are two little shop things. One of them sells shoe shine and the other sells jewelry. From my observations, the two groups of men got along extremely well. So well in fact that they recently started to play their own music super loud and will quite often start dancing in front of my store. Being the kind of person that I am, I was not particularly fond of their music taste, but I didn't mind listening to it nevertheless. It provided a sense of comfort as a background noise and entertainment especially when my store would be particularly slow. I have been observing both stations quite fervently because of my lack of trust in men as well as my desire to become friends with the funny people in the aisle. However, due to my painful shyness, I have never managed a proper conversation with the men. In fact, I am so pathetic that I can't even say good morning or hello when I open the store. I have often felt like I am being rude, but I simply don't have the skills to hold a conversation with someone for the sake of friendship or getting to know them. Professionally, well, that's a whole different story.  

"Hey there! I was just wondering if you were alright with us playing our music?" one of the shoe guys came in to ask.

"Oh I definitely don't care. I'm not like the other workers and I don't mind it at all" I managed to stumble out hoping that the words coming out of my mouth made the slightest sense.

And thus my first exciting event of the day occurred.

My second exciting event happened much later in the day. Two young men walked in my store and were browsing around. One was obviously older, maybe early twenties, while the other looked like a mere teenager. They strolled the store and as they came closer to the register I greeted them as is customary. It was then that I noticed the older guy's tattoos. He had a beautifully detailed wing along his forearm which immediately grabbed my attention. But he also had a beautiful lion peeking from the sleeve of his shirt all of which immediately sent my heart into palpations. I had a brief, insignificant conversation that I can't remember in the slightest and then watched as the beautiful man left my store. 

It wasn't until later that I started berating myself for not flirting or asking for his number. I am super hopeless when it comes to romance stuff. I can't flirt properly much less ask for someones phone number. But in my defense, I am not pretty enough or confident enough to take a step up on my own. And since no guy has ever attempted to flirt with me or ask for my number first, I don't think I'm the type who will ever get asked out by a guy. Eh, it was a loss for sure, but I'm not overly heartbroken.

Thus my shift ended in a quiet manner with me rushing off to get home as soon as I could. I wanted to see my baby pup and nothing was gonna stop me from speeding all the way home. After I arrived home, I took care of the cats, my pup, fed myself and completed my chores and with a exhausted huff of breath, I collapsed in my chair and turned on a murder mystery show to watch. Because of how busy and stressed I had been throughout the day, I had perfectly ignored the pain in my side and the searing pain of my shoulders and arms where I had strained them only the day before from lifting a bag of dog food. It was then that the feelings of hopelessness and loneliness began to settle around me reminding me that I was utterly and completely alone.

To be quite honest, I've come to resent the fact that I became so dependent on the conversations and the presence of the old people in my life. I'm angry at the loss I feel without them being here when I know I shouldn't be like this at all. At this very moment I want nothing more than to shove all these horrible feelings I have in a tiny box and store them away so that I won't feel hurt and in pain. I want to not talk to anyone, not see anyone, not go anywhere. I want to lay in my bed slowly withering away until nothing is left.

And then a call came. From who? None other than my bestie. We chatted for about an hour about various things and I felt glad to hear her voice, except it made me long for company once again. Even now as I finish today's blog, I am desperately wishing I had more close friends who could be here with me and help me not feel this way...but I have the friends I need so I will just battle this loneliness and eagerly await the old peoples return.

Now my shoulders are searing in so much pain I can feel my fingers and arm slowly losing feeling which means that today's blog has come to an end.  Signing off, me