Dinner and the Morning After

Ever had those mornings when you wake up and you’re not quite sure whether you’re still asleep or awake? Well, this is one of those mornings. It’s one of those mornings where you spend half the time, figuring out whether or not you’re asleep and the other half zoning out of reality. Your tummy is going ballistics from hunger yet you’d rather lay immobile and let your intestines eat each other up. You struggle to raise your arm to check your watch and you realize that you have somehow managed to burn hours thinking about absolutely nothing. You drag yourself out of bed and stumble upon something that vaguely resembles yesterday’s midnight snack. You forage for breakfast and to your surprise, no one’s home. And for the first time in your entire life, you find the fridge with absolutely nothing but ice and water. Last night, you just had a screaming argument with mother, so you think, this couldn’t be happening to you now. You must be dreaming you say to yourself, but you know you aren’t.

World, why do you ridicule me at a time like this? I have been asking that ever since I learned to do subtraction. But I guess that’s how it really works. When one aspect of your life isn’t working fine, the rest just comes tumbling down. Don’t you sometimes wish that the world could cut you some slack because your life is breaking apart? But by some freaky trick of circumstance, the world just does the opposite. It’s one of those times when you’re so damn depress, you turn on the TV for a dose of escapism and there’s nothing to watch but pathetic Ally McBeal. You’re not really in the mood to sympathize with some poor-excuse-for-a-person-who-doesn’t-seem-to-have-the-ability-to-get-over-her-almost-balding-ex-who-by-the-way-also-doesn’t-seem-to-possess-the-capacity-to-get-over-her-too type of woman. Besides, the last thing you want to see is a replica of your life being played out on TV! So, you turn on the radio instead, and the stupid thing starts crooning your former “our” song that you would much rather flush in the toilet than actually hear. This is definitely not your day. But then again, neither was yesterday or the day before that.

You slump back to the sofa with your uncombed hair, unwashed face, unbrushed teeth and unfed stomach. You start to think of your life, or rather what is left of it. Pieces of memories and fragments of consciousness are now what you call ‘my life’. It’s madness, you know. But what can you do? You’re barely 20. Some 30-year old hotshot Boston lawyer couldn’t figure it herself, so how could you. But she’s pathetic, you’re not. This madness has to stop, you say to yourself. And you zone out of reality to escape from the evil clutches of the maddening truth.

As you lay there on the couch, watching the wonders of static on TV, you think that maybe in some part of the world there is also someone who’s on the same boat as you are. Someone also trying to escape the thoughts of the past. Someone attempting to hide from what he truly feels. Someone trying to convince the rest of the populace, himself included, that he has the strength to live alone. Someone seeking shelter from all the emotional bombardments. Someone also trying to believe that in some cases, promises of forever could last more than a while. Someone also desperately holding on to every flicker of hope that there can be love. Someone who is also trying to escape from all of reality. But then again, you think that maybe you just want to think that you are not alone. Maybe you just want to draw comfort from the illusion that maybe he’s on the same boat as you’re on. But what if he really is on the same rocky boat? Too much thinking gives you brain-freeze. Too much hope gives you wet tear ducts. You flip back to the wonderful static on the TV.

It’s way past lunch and you still haven’t eaten breakfast yet. You feel a certain burning sensation in your tummy yet lethargy seems to have a firm grip on you. Maybe if you curl up, the burning agitation would go away. Maybe if you curl up and die, it’ll all go away. You remember what your mother told you last night before the screaming session. She said that it wouldn’t go away unless you let go of all hopes. It is hope that prevents you from moving on. You countered that it is hope that gives you a sense to go on. You fool, she said. And that’s when the screaming started. You were so firm on your stand last night, but right now, you couldn’t even make sense of what you had argued. Is it the hope that there is still something left in what you had once called love that binds you to the past? Is it the hope that love will find a way that keeps you from moving on? Will these questions be ever answered? It’s that brain-freeze again. You slowly drift to sleep.