This Day in November

It used to be my least favorite day of the year...the day before school starts up again after the Thanksgiving hiatus. For the past three years, I felt sicker than sick. Worse than the last day of summer vacation, or March vacation, even Christmas vacation. I loathe the next two weeks. They're anything but jolly, and tonight marks the beginning.

I'm not sure why this day, specifically, made me so angry and upset. Could be the impending midterms, but I'm one of those strange kids who actually likes studying for exams. Maybe it was the realization that mashed potatoes couldn't solve all my problems, nor would they be readily available once I got back to school. Maybe it dates back to my days in Farmington, when I didn't want to return to my roommate, my prison sentence at an all-girls academy. But why did that distress transfer? Wasn't I happy to be here, at Hotchkiss?

On this very night last year, I wrote a whole piece trying to talk myself down from the ledge. I was really on edge then. Junior year stress ate away at me like nothing I've ever experienced. I was  convinced that none of this was going anywhere. I droned on and on about how I wanted a real life, and how school somehow wasn't real life, (which I suppose I still don't believe it is).

Reading back through this piece is quite depressing. My whole schedule sits typed out. My whole existence put into a list of items, separated by semi-colons. I wanted so much more than a list of courses and grades, and yet I surrendered to timetables and sleepless nights. I was back to lists and count-downs, something I hadn't made since Farmington. I scheduled out every minute of every day, and it was only then that I could swallow easily and manage my stress. I vividly remember sitting in my room last year, my head face-planted into my desk, probably on a stack of note cards, just wondering how I would find the energy to move. I wanted to run, duck, hide, cry. Looking back, I probably did cry. Went to bed at a friend's house and woke up at 5:30 to go to the gym. Sprinted out my [depression, stress, disgust for the end of Thanksgiving break?] before the sun rose, and got on with my  least favorite day of the year.

Parts of me are sad looking back at this. I shouldn't have tortured myself like I did. I should have watched more sit-coms. I should have eaten more chocolate. I should have done something to sedate that miserable person inside. But that misery is in the past. I may still be a bit obsessive compulsive, a bit neurotic, but I'm not dreading tomorrow as I once did. My room's clean, my tea's hot, my college apps are in, and there's not much left on my plate. I can focus on whatever I want from this point forward. The next two weeks are important; they're still a sprint I have to partake in. But the despondency's gone, which should make this race a bit easier to take.