My weekend started at 5:10AM. My friend who was driving us to the trailhead overslept her alarm and did not wake up until I called her at the time she was supposed to arrive. We arrived at the trailhead and are met with a fiery sunrise and a rainbow over Sylvan Lake. Two and half hours later and 3.5 miles, we arrived at Black Elk Peak and eat banana bread in the cool breeze. On the way down I roll my ankle on a rock and hear a pop. The pain lasts for only a minute and so we move on. On the drive back, I open an email from a company that would’ve been a perfect match for me. I am not moving on in the interview process. We go to HuHot for lunch with another friend and have standard food quality but terrible service.

I go home, then to Walmart for my weekly grocery run. A lady and I discuss how the size of the grapes has decreased in the past week or two and I assure her that the ones I had last week still tasted good despite their size. My total is $65.43. I put my groceries away and inspect my ankle, updating my boyfriend before taking a shower. I sit on the couch, ice wrapped around my ankle, working on compiling photos of the 46 birds I had photographed thus far. Star Wars Episode I is on the projector. By the end of the movie the fatigue has well set in and I am ready for bed, despite the early time of 8:30PM. I do a sudoku in bed and mull over my day. The rejection email sets in the same time I realize I have made a mistake in my sudoku, unable to be corrected as it is written in pen. There is so much pain, pain, pain inside my head and yet my physical form feels fine. They don’t, don’t match and my brain can’t stand it. I am curled up, rocking back and forth for nearly an hour fighting my thoughts before the storm subsides and I can go to sleep.

The next day I am sore, physically, from the seven mile hike, and emotionally, from the previous night’s breakdown. I let myself sit in bed longer than normal. Banana bread for breakfast. Deboning a rotisserie chicken at the living room table is oddly therapeutic. Chicken tortilla soup is prepped in a crockpot and set on low. My ankle hurts less. The swelling has gone down. I take pictures of birds on campus. In my friends’ apartment I finish compiling my bird photos. I curl up in their pile of blankets and stuffed animals.

I go to Culver’s for lunch and have standard food quality and standard service. Star Wars Episode II is on the projector. I start laundry and work on cutting out the bird photos and name cards before taping them on the wall in my bedroom. There are 47 now, since I found American Crows eating the remains of a pizza bagel dropped on the sidewalk. The laundry is folded. I sit and embroider on the couch. Star Wars Episode III is on the projector. My friend comes over for soup and cornbread. I repair his dress pants as the cornbread finishes in the oven. We eat soup and cornbread and talk about school. I clean up the dishes and he leaves. I wash grapes just like my mother taught me. Salt, baking soda, and water swished around for thirty seconds, dumped, water to rinse. My lunch is now ready: grapes, a banana, and three cheese sticks. I realize maybe now it is time to write down my thoughts again; it has been a while.

I don’t know what the moral of the story is. Maybe I’ll look back and realize it in ten years, much like I do currently with my middle school self.