For the past few weeks, it seems like all I've been doing is repeating to myself, "All I have to do is get through today. This midterm, this shift, this awkward encounter. That's all I have to do and then, that's it." But then, a few days later, it's the same thing. If I'm watching TV, I'm thinking about how I should be doing my history reading. If I'm reading in bed, I'm thinking about how I should be sleeping. If I'm at school, I'm thinking about how I should be making money. If I'm working, I'm thinking about how I should be studying. This has always been a major problem of mine, the inability to do just one thing and let it be ok that that's the one thing I'm doing right then. I have to wonder if I was always like this, and I think the difference between Grown Up Me and, like, Middle School Me is that it was my parents dictating what I needed to do and when: now is the time to study, now is the time to go to ballet, now is the time to eat, now is the time to sleep. It's not like they were control freaks, it's just that I was dependent on them, being, you know, a child.
I definitely miss having a bed time. And how my dad used to wake me up to go to school: he would toss Charlie the cat on me, who would curl up by me knees or on my head, and my mom would bring me a warm washcloth and eventually, slowly but surely, I would work my way out of bed and my dad would drive me to school. It wasn't too long after this pattern started that my parents got a divorce, and I think that's the only thing I miss about them being together: the teamwork, the routine. Sitting down as a family to eat dinner, having dessert while watching the Cosby Show or Seinfeld. After they got a divorce, I took off for boarding school (literally, a week after the divorce was finalized and my mom moved into a new house) and have essentially been on my own, setting my own bed times and waking myself up, since then.
It's really easy to understand Aaron's and my relationship from this standpoint. I know it doesn't make a lot of sense to people in real life, people who see us together, but we kind of parent each other: he handles my emotional breakdowns and I handle his grown-up stuff (the bill paying, mostly). I don't know, it makes sense to me. You know how they say opposites attract? It's because you need something that you don't have. If you're neurotic and obsessive, you need someone spontaneous.