The Empty Chain

Preface ~ September 6th, 2003

There's a beautiful moment during the night that everyone has experienced at one point or another, where you're so deep into your sleep that you dream, and the peacefulness of simply resting feels so enlightening that your entire brain is experiencing just one big smile. My early school hours caused me to divulge into a deep slumber every night, and that big smile is always there. But then, of course, is my alarm, and as much I hate interruption in a normal conversation, the way my alarm interrupts my sweet, sweet dreams is the worst kind of disturbance there is.

That's why the weekend was my golden point, the heavenly part of the week that motivated me to do better on all the other days in the hopes the weekend would then seem to approach faster. No alarms, no stress, just lots and lots and lots of time, to sleep, eat, read, blog - anything I wanted to do. I was free on the weekends. With all the enthralling things in the world, I think it'd be pretty pitiful to say that those two days were the things that made me feel unstoppable, but in all honesty, they were.

So as expected, on the morning of Saturday, September 6th, when my mother woke me by repeatedly banging on my door and shouting my name at the top of her lungs, I was truly disappointed and quite pissed to have to awake from my wonderful sleep. Why she woke me up was unknown to me, but I got up anyway - the rebellious nature I developed during freshman year usually dissipated at this time of year. My mother got especially sensitive during the beginning of September, and everyone in our household knew not to cross paths with her when she was emotionally vulnerable like this.

"You need to get up now, Cameron!" she kept repeating, continually pounding her fist on my door. "I want you to organize your drawers before you start getting homework from school."

I rolled back onto my stomach and groaned. Not what a wanted to do on the first weekend of the school year. "My drawers are perfectly fine!"

"No, they're disorganized and messy and in need of fixing!" she yelled back. "You got a lot of crap in there, so get up!"

Even though she couldn't see me, I turned my head towards the door and made a face. After sitting there for a few minutes, trying to collect all the energy I had within me, I flung myself over the side of the bed and landed with a thump on the floor.

"Uy, Cameròn!" I heard my grandmother shuffle along outside my room, and then shout, "¿Qué están haciendo, estás loca chica?"

"Nothing, Abuela," I grumbled, "I'm fine."

From a distance, I heard my mother call out for my grandmother, and as she shuffled away again I folded my body back onto my knees and sat up. In front of me was a drawer, and deciding I didn't want to get to get in any more trouble by anyone in my family, I yanked it open to begin the long organization process.

My mother was right; my drawer was awfully messy. I definitely excelled when it came to academics, but even the greatest geniuses were scatterbrains. I pulled out everything; a variety of old journals, bracelets, books, photos, papers, and just like my mother said, a whole lot of other crap. I decided to keep the photos - "Photos are memories!" my mother constantly reminded me - but keeping everything else seemed just pointless. I gathered it all in my arms, and still being delirious from waking up so suddenly, I took it downstairs in heavy, uneven stomps.

I walked into the kitchen, where my brother was emptying his own belongings into the trash can. My mother stood at the counter, mixing something in a bowl. "So nice of you to get up, Cameron," she said sarcastically. "It's ten thirty already. Why did you sleep so late?"

I shifted my gaze to the right, and saw that the time was, in fact, ten thirty. "It's the weekend, Ma," I reminded her, "what time do you expect me to be up?"