The mattress underneath my body holds me in place. The pillow rested underneath my head whispers, “Stay a while”, and the thick comforter embracing me keeps me captive. But the echoing sound of “Paradise” by Coldplay ironically disrupts my actual paradise.
I reach over to the charging iPhone and press snooze. “Only a few more minutes, and then you should be ready to face it,” my conscience tells me. So I shut my eyes, and coil up, and within moments, I am already drifting into unconsciousness……… “I dream of Para-Para-Paradise!”
OH MY GOSH. I, again, reach over to the iPhone, and this time I turn the alarm off. I flail my arms out of the covers and am suddenly confronted by the freezing air created by my high-speed ceiling fan.
My doorknob twists, and my full-length mirror hits against the door, and I spot the familiar face. I already know why he’s in here. I already know what he’s going to say. He switches off my ceiling fan, and comes over to my night stand and flips on the lamp. My eyes squint in response to the sudden change from a peaceful, dark atmosphere.
I suddenly feel like a bear disturbed during hibernation. He selfishly separates me from my warmth and rips my covers off, and yells my name followed by, “Get up!!” I am now outraged. My peaceful mode abruptly switched off and onto outrage mode. “DAD!!! Oh my GOSH, I know!!!!! Get out!” I yell. “Okay I love you,” he says. That calms me down a little but at this point I’m so mad, that defiance floods my mind.
Defiance is my friendly enemy. I love Defiance. We work together. So I trudge over to my door and slam it, trudge back to my bed and flip off the switch to my nightstand lamp that hasn’t even had the time to warm up all the way.
I slip into my bed, “Sorry baby, I’m back.” I put the covers over me, because my naked legs are covered in goose bumps. And I slowly drift back into unconsciousness.
Next thing I know, my phones ringing. Caleb’s face pops up as my wallpaper. I answer “Hi.” “Hey I’m out front, you coming’?”………..Crap. “Umm…. I’m sick today.” He stretches my name out into multiple syllables then after a pause, “… hope you feel better… I’ll miss you.” “Okay bye.” “I love you bye.” I hang up. I’m now frustrated.
My dad comes in again “Caleb’s outside waiting for you… WHAT THE HECK? Why are you still in bed?” “…I uh… my stomach hurts.” “You do this every Monday, just get up, you can still make it on time if you get ready in 5 minutes.” Is he insane? 5 minutes? No way. “I’ll just miss today, get out of my room.” I see his face flood with disappointment.
This is the reason he gets on his knees in prayer in the morning. Why his face floods with tears, because he’s disappointed in me. It breaks my heart. But I still don’t have the strength or motivation to get up and make him proud.
It’s like drugs, I can’t stop what I’m doing, I recognize it’s not good for me, that it’s slowly killing me. What a sad habit. But what I lack is motivation. What’s the key?
When I’m at school, I count down the hours until it’s over, but I always have a great time when I’m there. I beat myself up every day.
I have a strong desire within me to do well in school and go to university. I want to go places.
I despise lazy. Laziness is disgusting to me. I hate the addiction. I hate what it’s doing to me. I need a way out of it. I need to fight it. Missing school at least one day a week is not in my favor. And I hate having to go through the same ritual every week.
I hate when my parents are disappointed in me. I crave their approval.
I reach a low point when I’m thinking of all the ways in which I don’t need an education to have a successful life, and find nothing.
When I go to court as a result of this weekly ritual, the judge looks me in the eyes, and always sees the opportunity to change despite the fact that he’s seen me three years in a row. It’s always the same consequence: 40 hours of community service. I don’t seem to ever learn from the mistakes I made the year before. But what encourages me to quit the ritual is the plain fact that I will not receive the credits for my classes if I continue to miss school. But instead of harshly scolding me, the judge just says, “You don’t belong here, you have a bright future, don’t let this little obstacle keep you down, take the opportunity to change, and rise up and beat it!” Funny, my parents tell me the same thing. I am consistently confronted with the same statement: “This isn’t like you.” Am I defying my own ways?
I guess I never really fully understood this concept. Through my life I’ve come to know that I am deadly afraid of change. But since this certain situation is asking me to change for the better then what’s holding me back? That’s still a mystery to me.