By Rachel Sauer
Special to The Daily Sentinel
Brace yourselves, friends, for I am about to lay a fairly major “back in my day” on you. Here goes:
Back in my day, school started around Labor Day.
I know this because somewhere deep in my lizard brain, the impulses of a new school year remain. At this very second I am dying for a peanut butter sandwich while also scouting around for a few textbooks to wrap in cut-to-fit paper bags and a few personality-defining pins to put on my backpack.
For a very fevered minute I considered buying one of those classroom pencil sharpeners that screw to the wall, despite never, ever writing with pencils these days. I would have been doing it for the sound, the scent and the unparalleled delight of those spiral pencil shavings.
But the main reason I know my school-going muscle memory has been activated is because of the 3 a.m. thinkies.
Since my K-12 days, it’s been my inadvertent tradition for about a week around the time school starts to unwittingly spring awake at 3 a.m. and think about ALL THE THINGS.
In middle school – which was far and away the worst time of my life through no fault of the wonderful faculty and staff at Mt. Garfield Middle School, it’s just a hideous time for a lot of us – my 3 a.m. thinkies veered toward your more traditional adolescent angst:
- Are the girls in the locker room even 12??? They must have been held back a few grades. (I was a very late bloomer.)
- Do I remember my locker combination? Is one of the numbers eleventy?
- I watched that boy spit on the carpet in front of his locker and rub it in with his shoe for like 10 minutes! Who do I call??
- Someday my skin will fit. I think. Today is not that day, unfortunately.
In college, the 3 a.m. thinkies were more of the “what am I doing with my life, what does it all mean, why isn’t statistics going into my brain besides the fact it’s THE ABSOLUTE WORST” variety.
As my life has changed, my thinkies have changed, but they always occur in the week around Labor Day when I can read maximum maudlin significance into seasons changing and leaves falling and the inexorable passage of time.
Needless to say, I’m currently cerebrum-deep in my week o’ thinkies. Though the timing hasn’t changed, the content and texture have. Plus, I’m much more aware that my subconscious would poison me in some weird, Victorian way if it could somehow acquire mass and the ability to manipulate weapons. I spend a lot of time mentally shrieking, “WHERE DID THAT THOUGHT EVEN COME FROM AND WHY AM I DREDGING IT UP NOW??!?”
Some recent 3 a.m. gems:
- Whatever happened to that guy Seth who I thought was so cute in high school and who was convicted of murder? Isn’t he in prison for like 40 more years?
- Did I turn the hose all the way off?
- Am I going to need shoulder replacement someday? I think this twinge is new. Are shoulders joints that can be replaced? I should look that up in the morning.
- Remember that time I accidentally drooled on my leg while talking with my co-worker Dave? Yeah, that was embarrassing.
- Due to procrastination, I’ll have to accomplish 23 hours’ worth of work in eight hours tomorrow.
- If I fall back asleep now, I can sleep for two-ish hours before the alarm goes off.
- I should have changed my previous cat’s litter box more often.
- Also, remember that guy in the Sam’s Club parking lot that time, who thought I opened my door into his truck even though I didn’t, and he hopped out and called me a very offensive and gendered slur? I should have told him I was surprised he could even see out his window, as short as he was.
- Revenge fantasies? Am I the Count of Monte Cristo now? Yikes.
- Have I ever tried a Monte Cristo? Don’t they have cranberry sauce or something?
- Remember that time I told a guy on a first date that cannibalism makes a certain sort of sense if you believe in the eternal soul? Yeah, not surprised there was no second date.
- If I fall asleep now, I can get an hour-ish of sleep before I have to get up.
But just as soon as the 3 a.m. thinkies make their annual, new-school-year visit, they depart again. As much as I can, I accept that life changes and Earth turns, and once again I’m sleeping through the night, blissfully unaware of what my subconscious is plotting.