Today, I felt like moving.

An exercise in describing events; a non-linear day in a life

Today, I woke up at 1233 to my alarm. Three minutes off from the intention, but way better than the usual “snooze and wake up two hours later.”

Like the person I was a year ago, I scroll through social media in this order: Instagram, Twitter, Facebook — this mindlessly loops for about thirty minutes, an hour if feel as if there is a magnetic energy keeping me in my bed. But today, in a shake-up of the routine, I scrolled for about ten or fifteen minutes, got up, folded the blankets, and fixed up the pillows. I pat myself on the back.

Like the introverted boy I was six years ago, I go on my Tumblr account. I check if there’s still something I can do to mess with the html code of my blog. Then I obsessively like posts, and then reblog some with long hashtags. Hashtags like #are they doing a social media psyops because why are they posting these pics on their feed. I check my asks, see the fan fiction requests pile up, take a deep breath. I guess people do really like my work.

Like the person I was during my freshman year of college, I fixate on my playlists again. What song will I keep on loop now? Probably that new Mitski single, or maybe I should listen to Britney Spears’ Blackout record from 2007 because that one TikTok said so. What nightcore remix will I stumble upon now and be surprised that it’s in streaming services? I press shuffle on one of the fifty playlists I have.

Like the person I was in my senior year of high school, I think about my hair. I shaved my head in the same line of reasoning Britney did: so no one else could comment on my hair, and I would have one less thing to worry about. But why am I fixating so much on my buzzcut? I think about the many things I could do with it once it grows out, then remember that in the event that it grows out, I would probably fantasize having long hair. I remind myself to live in the moment.

Like the boy I was during my freshman year of high school, I do a skin care routine in daylight. I count the number of visible pores, the number of scars on my face, the number of dark marks. At the same time, I look at how my eyes look brown when exposed to sunlight. Then I ask myself, doesn’t everybody with black eyes have this? Not being sure, I shrug it off as I put sunblock. I realize that as a person thats written about the eyes of so much people, I’ve finally realized how mine looked nice.

Like the boy I was during one of my first times staying up late at night, I make a bet with myself to see how late I was going to be awake. I wished I could sleep at the strike of midnight, but one-thirty in the morning might be good enough. It’s not as bad as sleeping at three, but not as calming as sleeping at four. The thought of sleeping at the earliest time possible was like coffee to me. I remind myself it’s not a competition.

Like the boy I was when I first broke a glass in the presence of no-one, I got a deep cut my middle finger playing with a broken frame I was supposed to clean up. I didn’t realize I was bleeding, I thought it was cool at first, but realized I kept bleeding. For reasons undisclosed, thank God there was a cooler full of water in my room. I remember a first-aid technique I learned from my aunt — keep pouring water on the wound, keep putting pressure on it, let it rest, do not panic, stop the bleeding. Was it my aunt? Something I learned in Boy Scouts? I remember that my memories are a blur.