Waking Up

Enjoying Life...for a bit.

The Ritalin wasn't working so well for me. Scratch that, it was working TOO well. I'd stay up all night studying and taking notes for tests. Notes as in, copying a whole chapter word for word. Even though I'd be tired, I wouldn't be able to sleep. There were other things I noticed as well. Like, my handwriting just had to be perfect, if not, I'd erase it and erase and erase until it was just right. Also, my pencil just had to have a certain sharpness to it. If it didn't I'd sharpen and sharpen sometimes going through whole pencils in one day. It also made me VERY edgy and agitated. If you so much as looked at me wrong, it piss me off. I stopped taking it after a while, and never went back to the doctor chalking it up to just another bogus diagnoses. While it was a wrong diagnoses, it was closest to the truth we had come to thus far. I just didn't know it.

Just after I turned 16, I got my license. This enabled me to focus more on my social life. While I wasn't a complete social outcast, in the last couple of years I had really neglected it. I was tired of doctors, teachers and most of all, my tiredness. I didn't really know if anything was wrong with me, we had done everything we could possibly think of to no avail. So I was going to start enjoying life and deal with it the best I could. These were supposed to be the best years of my life! So after that last infuriating day, I did just that.

At around the sametime life at home became very turbulant. Between financial burdens and my mom and step dad's marriage failing, it was really easy to stay away from home.  I was even able tp forget my sleepiness for a while, but sleep didn't forget me. I pushed myself further and further between school, work, and trying to keep up with my friends. I did pretty good for a year. However, sleep was just around the corner waiting to pounce on its prey at just the right time.

It was two weeks before I was starting my senior year in high school. Since I didn't drink, I was sober cabbing always. One night, I'd been up particularly late, usually I'd just stay at a friend's house but that night I really wanted to sleep in my own bed. Problem was, since I wanted to sleep in my bed so badly I had to give a few people rides home. This ended up taking an hour and a half, and was extremely exhausted. I almost made it home, with only about 2 miles to go. I never did get to sleep in my bed that night.

I started to get extremely sleepy and rolled all my windows down and blasted my stereo in an effort to wake up. Despite that, the inevetible happened. I fell asleep behind the wheel. I remember hearing really loud thuds in my sleep. This was me in the ditch. Being in the ditch for about 75 feet I reached a driveway approach and jumped my car at 60 m.p.h. I briefly woke up right before crashing. Not knowing what was going on all I seen was blackness and green leaves everywhere. The next moment was black again as I crashed head on with an oak tree. I don't know how long I had been sitting there, but once I finally woke up, I was extremely disoriented and scared. It took me a while to realize my situation. I then realized my head was bleeding, realizing my steering wheel was broken, broken glass everywhere. I tried to get out and couldn't open my door, nor crawl out the window seeing as I side swiped another tree as well and it was blocking my window. I started looking all around for my cell phone with no luck. All at once I realized the pain I was in. My head, especially, I must have broken my steering wheel with my head! My ankles killed as my tranny was pushed up into my pedals. I really started to panic. Two cars had already passed by but didn't see my car in the heavily wooded deep ditch. I need to get out of here!

I started to climb into the passenger side to crawl out that window. It being 3 in the morning, my next dilemma was should I wair for another car to pass or should I attempt to walk down the long driver to the homeowners house? I suddenly saw headlights coming, and if I wanted them to see me I better get moving now! I labored climbing up the ditch and waved my arms once I reached the road. I waved just long enough to know they seen me and were stopping when I collapsed. I was extremely disoriented but still was able to provide the cops with my name and address.

I was taken to the hospital in ambulance, and after a series of tests, they felt I was ok to go home. At 9 am the tow truck drivers brought my annihilated car home.

"Were you the one in this car?" The passenger asked in disbelief.

"Yeah.." I said shakily.

"Wow, you are one lucky girl! We thought for sure this was a fatal crash, and you walked away! Oh, we also found your cell phone and some other items about 40 feet from the car in the woods."

"Oh awesome! Thank you very much!"

"No problem, we are just glad your ok."

"Yeah, me too!"

I was quite sore for a while but nothing seriously wrong. My senior year started when I noticed some major changes, however.