Bits of My Ideas

Normality

Hopefully, another ordinary day is ahead of you without anything world-changing or utterly miserable. Every day has been monotonous for quite some time now.

Your alarm wakes you up as usual, its ear-piercing noise cutting through your head. But you don't dare change it to something more pleasant because you would certainly sleep through it, the obvious result of tossing and turning late into the night, which you can't stop yourself from.

You might have a shower first thing in the morning if you want to procrastinate, but you have no reason to since your bed is always so cold, and you hate warm showers. You despise looking into the mirror even when you're washing your face or brushing your teeth; your own appearance looking right back at you makes you feel exposed.

You make your morning coffee. The bittersweet smell used to excite you back when you had to prepare it for your parents. Two stolen sips from each of their cups used to make you giggly and unnecessarily happy. And now it's failing to wake you up and give you the energy you need so badly to face the day that's not even coming yet.

Breakfast is bland. It's more like a responsibility than anything else. Being hungry feels unnecessary now that you're labelling food as a mere need. But every time you think of skipping meals, your mother's stern voice rings across your skull. Still, you don't have anything heavy for the sake of your own comfort.

You take off your pyjamas and change into something more presentable. You might try to comb your wild hair, but most of the time you just run your hand through it a couple times since it's always short. Putting something on your face seems like a lot of work and even your dad's scowls of disapproval never stopped you from going out barefaced.

School or work or whatever you have is waiting judgingly for you. You try your best, you really do. But you will never understand how things can be too much and not enough at the same time. No matter if you're at the top, doing poorly, or just an average Joe, your own comparison, humiliation, and mediocrity will respectively scream in your ears before society has a chance to open their mouth.

Lunch break passes in a blur. You eat slowly to avoid talking but then pace up again for you hate the unconscious eyes on the last one eating. You might do some work to avoid social interactions and do some unavoidable ones. When the break ends, you rush to your work zone, not the chosen comfort zone but at least it's isolated.

Shower in the evening means rethinking any minor inconvenience that happened during the day. Some words you shouldn't have said, some you should have, and other things you can't change all come flashing into your brain as if you could turn back in time and fix every single one of them.

Dinner doesn't even deserve to be called one. You're just shoving random food into your mouth to calm your grumpy stomach. You excuse yourself by saying dinner isn't in a healthy lifestyle but heaven knows it's not the reason.

You try to do some of the things you call "hobbies" after doing the dishes from the whole day. Reading isn't the same; your eyes just run over words and they don't absorb you into the book like they used to. Watching films just feels like looking at other people living their lives that are completely different from yours, even the so-called relatable ones. The excitement from any kind of entertainment has dimmed long ago.

Getting ready for bed makes you sigh out of both relief and exhaustion. A relief because the day is ending, and an exhaustion because you know you won't be sleeping anytime soon. You lie awake in bed and your mind feels like a fog. Your tiredness doesn't make you sleepy; it just drains you. And suddenly, you can't believe that you used to be the kid who fell asleep on their mum's lap without any trouble.

You don't know whether to feel grateful or frustrated that yet another ordinary day has passed without anything world-changing or utterly miserable. Nothing's out of place but everything's barely hanging on. It feels depressing but you feel guilty because you should be thankful that your life is going normal. Nothing's going wrong.

Nothing's wrong, yet nothing's right either.

1st May 2024, Wednesday