Wildflower: Dear Diary

Phlox: 10

Dear Diary,

Here's what happened today.

1/7

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My eyes don't bother to open when the booming knocks on my door so rudely interrupt my much-needed sleep. The sound intrudes my head, seeming to rattle around in the empty space where my brain should be. I sigh, (is it too early to already be sighing?) and slowly sit upright in my warm bed. My room is always a freezing temperature due to me never turning off my fan. The spinning and constant buzz makes sure that I'm never completely alone. Sometimes I want to be, and sometimes I don't. Either way, the humming reminds me that it's okay to not always be in control.

Of course, I can't possibly be fully aware of who's banging on my door, but I can get pretty damn close to one hundred percent. My dad would never in a million years wake me if I was late for something, and I know that as fact. I stretch and lazily make my way to the door. I wrap my arms around my mom after opening the creaky sheet of wood that we call a door.

"Hi, Mom."

I figure that she's here for my sparring class. The one that she briefly mentioned like a month ago. I didn't think she was honestly serious about that! And not just that, but why is she making me do this without my doctor's go-ahead? My knee isn't back to its previous health, and it likely never will be, so what the fuck, Mom?

I don't really want to think about how messed up my knee is. How hopeless I am. It just makes me feel so pathetic, and I'm already enough of a baby, I don't need to add my emotions about my injury to the mix.

My mom raggedly pulls away and mumbles something along the lines of, "Get ready." Okay, whatever.

I push my door open slowly, revealing my sad, plain room. The walls are that simple beige color that every house starts out with, and the ceiling is a dull white. The color that's expected from an angel's wings. I never fail to prove how horrible I am at decorating every time I add something new to my walls. Mismatched pictures on the walls that have clashing colors, a blue, full-length mirror in the corner that isn't fully out of its wrapping, and random stuffed animals and figurines on dusty shelves. My bed isn't much better. No sheets, and the mattress is terribly thin. Every time I lay down, my back nearly presses against the wooden frame holding the mattress. I don't actually have a pillow; I just use my stuffed animals as cushions.

Following my gaze, I drag my feet to my tall, white dresser next to my closet door and pull out some thin, black joggers and a dark green T-shirt with my training company's name on it in even darker green letters. I also get out some white Mike socks that have those rubber grip things on the bottom so I don't slip and break my ass on the floor. And for the final step of the tedious routine I do before a shower, I get out a towel and a pair of boxers before heading to the bathroom across the hall.

I always dread morning showers because the hot water doesn't quite work yet, and it always feels like I'm actual seconds away from getting hypothermia. But I have to suffer through it, unless I want to stink. 

I leave the shower with goosebumps and shaking limbs. For reasons unbeknownst to me, I never learned how to wrap/tie a towel so that it doesn't fall down, so I always put on boxers before walking my half-naked self back to my bedroom. Trust me, it's the only way to not accidentally flash anyone walking in the hallway.

Somehow, the air outside out the shower is colder than the ice water, so I quickly wrap up in my towel to dry off. I slip on my underwear and keep the towel around me while I rush to my boring, yet thankfully warm, room. 

As I'm busy tossing the towel across the room into my laundry hamper and closing the screechy door to my room, I catch a glimpse of my almost-naked body in my full-length mirror.  Wow, have I always looked this pale? Maybe it was just the icy wash, but most of my bodily signs of ever being cold have disappeared by now. Am I unhealthy? My ribs show, but my stomach doesn't stick one way or another, it's simply flat. My cheeks aren't as hollow as they feel, and my legs show their defining muscle with every little movement. I flex my upper arms this way and that, but nothing impressive shows.