I Was Lying Awake in Bed One Morning..

I wake up in a daze on the 27th of October. My internal clock tells me it is 6:30 am. Time to freshen up, wear the warmest sportswear I can find and run along the harbour. I eye my phone with suspicion, the faintest doubt rising in my mind.

Why hasn’t my alarm gone off yet?

I lie in my bed waiting. My deep breathing is a stark contrast to the silent dawn. There is no howling wind, no rustling leaves, no chirping birds. Only silence. I grow impatient.

Why hasn’t my alarm gone off yet?

Well, I think. Any moment now, as I wait in my bed fully awake and fully capable of getting up and getting on with my day, my phone will tell me to get up and get on with my day. I look out the window and see the faintest tinge of navy in the black sky. Somewhere beyond the horizon, the sun is preparing for its grand entry to Dublin. I think about life.

I immerse myself in the stillness and associate it with the stillness of my job search, growing ever more scared that all the opportunities have passed me by and that I will never find any employment. The abbreviation ‘MBA’ whooshes around my mind like an inflated balloon that has been released- directionless, quickly deflating and making a nasty sound. Did I gain any benefit from it? Did I make the right choice? Was I at the right stage in my career when I enrolled?

Thinking about the MBA gives me a headache. So I think about something positive instead. Halloween. Spooky season! I can’t wait to see all the wonderful decorations and the cute little costumes that the kids wear when they come knocking at my door and I hide under my covers pretending I’m not home because I accidentally ate all the candy.

Halloween, then Christmas and finally the new year! 2020. Gosh, this one is it, isn’t it? I think about all the organisations, Governments and people that have placed a special significance on this year. Vision 2020. Mission 2020. Project 2020. I try to remember what I had hoped to achieve by 2020.

Blackness. Nothing comes to mind. Well, I suppose it would be the same goals carried over from 2016. Get fit, get organised, learn something new, eat healthy, write more, travel (#wanderlust). My breathing grows more shallow. Why are these goals from 2016 still outstanding? Why have I crossed nothing from the list?

Why hasn’t my damn alarm gone off yet?

I look back to the years before and I can remember nothing. My life is a meaningless string of unrelated memories floating around in a mind that I stopped challenging eons ago. Remember when I organised a new year’s party for the neighbourhood on the roof of our apartment building with the help of the other kids? How old was I then? 9. 10 tops. Where has that confidence gone? Where has my creativity run off to?

I turn to my side and remember more such instances from my life so far — stories I had written, poems that had made people laugh and think, going up on stage with unbridled confidence to speak in front of a crowd of hundreds of people, singing unabashedly into the night. What had made me stop?

I think about people to blame, any direction to point my fingers in. Life had been too stressful! I faced failures, rejection, disappointments! I had a rough couple of years when nothing worked out! Wait…No I didn’t. I have ample talent to go after my dreams, I have immensely supportive family and friends.

Had I let them down? Had I given them hope and then brought the same hopes crashing down around them through a blazing fireball of mediocrity, laziness and nonchalance??

Jeez, when is that alarm going to ring???

Ok I need to calm down. No hopes have been dashed, no crime committed against people’s expectations. I just need to refocus, that’s all! I have 66 days until this year is done. I’m going to make the best of it! I’m going to make PLANS! I’m going to keep a journal tracking my progress! And this journal will be used, unlike the other 4 fancy journals I have lying around. I’ll chart out my goals, set milestones and stick to them! I’ll need paper — lots of it. I’ll need markers, pens, my ruler, my cute stickers, washi tape, my glitter pens of course. This planner will be my magnum opus, the best damn thing the world has seen, so efficient and detailed that I will have to follow my plans. I will have no other option than to be successful and glorious and loved by all!

For the love of God, when will that blasted alarm ring? I need to go for my run!

I snatch up my phone from the bedside table and unlock it. The time is 6:00 am.

What?

I look at my watch. The watch says 7:00 am.

I wear my glasses and try again. Same results.

A quick Google search tells me daylight savings time had ended at 2:00 am that night.

I am fully awake, all geared up to go run on the harbour, dreams of achieving my goals fresh in my mind. I am feeling on top of the world. This year will be different, this year will see a new me, this year will the be the year I revive the qualities that the younger me had, this year for sure!

But my phone tells me that I have half an hour before my alarm goes off so I go back to sleep instead.