FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS

FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS

DON’T YOU KNOW IT’S RUDE TO READ SOMEONE ELSE’S JOURNAL? IF YOU READ THIS YOU’RE A BAD PERSON. A HORRIBLE PERSON.

By Jude Sampson

October 18, 2022

Ishould probably be worried about my indifference towards living. Always the drama queen, I know, but it’s hard to not be indifferent when everything feels like it’s crumbling around me. I’m perplexed by this, because I really don’t remember school and life feeling this turbulent at the beginning of the semester. The beginning of the semester. What did my one professor say was due around this time? They talked about it once and never brought it up again. Or was that my other professor? No, no. It couldn’t have been. I missed that class a few times because I had doctor’s appointments.

The doctor. Fuck the doctor. I went in for a checkup and now I am glued to my bed, knocking on death’s door. Seriously, my cough would make your chain-smoking aunt raise an eyebrow. Now I’m using said cough and other accompanying symptoms as an excuse not to go to school or do any work. However, resting right now is necessary.

No! No. It’s only idiotic. It’s idiotic in the sense that my unwillingness to do work will no doubt come back to bite me in the ass in about… a week? Maybe even less than that. It’s midterms right now. Things feel like they are moving a mile a minute. Four things are due everyday and I am getting all of them in by the skin of their teeth, completed in such a way that you would think I did them with my eyes closed.

The grandfather clock just went off in my living room. It was a wedding present for my parents, and its twelve chimes signal that it’s midnight. October 19th- a brand new day. Notice the lack of an exclamation point there? It’s because now I have to consider my human duties for tomorrow. Let’s see what’s on the agenda.

Get up at 7:30 a.m. Stay in bed until 8:15 a.m. Scramble to get dressed, put everything I need in my bag, and eat a stale piece of toast that I will call breakfast so I can leave by 8:30 a.m. I’m in the car! The car that has no gas. Not enough to make it to school, anyways. I wonder if I laid my head on the horn and let my eardrums rupture it would be excuse enough to not go.

But I will get the gas and go on my merry way. I don’t know what’s merry about spending $6.20 a gallon for gas, though. Oh! That’s another thing I have to think about! Money! My job! How much I need to work to be able to pay for things like gas and the food I won’t have in my stomach tomorrow! But I will fire up the engine anyways. Time’s-a-wastin’.

There is no grandfather clock in my car. In fact, the wind will whip through it so ferociously that I will barely hear myself think. But I’ll still hear that fucking ticking. Each tick taps on my brain, a reminder of something I’ll have to do before my head hits the pillow tomorrow night. Or, tonight? Time in general has been alluding me. I can’t process my responsibilities. But I have to try.

One quiz due tonight and two due tomorrow. An essay due Friday. A meeting for a group project Saturday morning. Hanging out with my friends Saturday night. I’ll feign enjoyment. Working early Sunday morning. I’ll feign hospitality. Getting home from work I’ll have one more quiz due and two discussion posts due. I’ll pretend I relate to other people’s discussion posts. Then I’ll burn my skin off in the most scalding hot shower I’ve ever taken.

Applications for things and paperwork for the DMV will continue to sit on my desk until they develop a thin layer of dust. I have to go back to the doctor. My Nona is in the hospital. I need to eat. I have a big essay due in a week; I should get a jump on that. I need to work out and lose a bunch of weight. I’m the funniest person to ever walk the planet.

I feel as if I get no say over the constant fighting between time and all of the things I have to get done. I’m only a silent observer in the chaos that has overtaken my life.

I find that I only defer from this kind of thinking at night. I think I like the nighttime so much because, for an hour or two when I’m still awake, time feels like it stills. I’m not on the freeway or in the library at school, letting how busy and exhausted I am be the only things on my mind. You know what else is on my mind, though?

What is my life going to be like after college? I’ve never not been in school. Will I adjust fine? What kind of job will I have? Will I fall in love once I settle into adulthood? Will I be alone forever? I would ask about kids and a house, but in this economy? Ludicrous.

I feel like we’re expected to settle into life and into these monotonous routines as emotionless, spineless freaks. Everything is going to be schedules and timing and praying that somehow life can stop for a second before my chest caves in on itself from the pressure. If I’m bitching and moaning this much about midterms in my sophomore year of college, how the fuck am I going to hold it together when my deadlines are for things like rent and work projects that could cost me a career and my entire livelihood?

Surprisingly, my therapist says I have an issue with creating theoretical problems in my distant future, therefore making me unable to live in and enjoy the present. I always nod my head at this (because it’s brought up every session) and I leave feeling bad that my body language must have lied and told her that I understand this. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to look at my future and create any positive scenarios.

Maybe that’s a product of living today. This sense of urgency people have to live is caused by a system that tells them the only life worth living is one where you break your back for a wage that barely even covers your rent. The clock is ticking on climate change and the people we are told to vote for to make change do nothing but tweet action shots of them walking around the White House with captions like “It’s hammer time”. It makes me want to scratch my eyes out.

I’m so sick and on so much cold medicine that I’m reading all of this back and realizing I have gone on about twenty different tangents. It’s funny that I had the time to do this all while complaining about how little time I have. I’m very versatile in that way.

I don’t know how to close out this entry in a way that makes me appear okay. I am not okay! I have stopped trying to convince myself that I am.

It’s just a fruitless effort that wastes my time.