As you now know, Maggie and I spent our lives apart. We loved each other but we knew that because we had different fathers and other circumstances, we just couldn’t be like normal sisters. The ones that spent every free moment together laughing, sharing clothes, gossiping, and talking about boys. We connected, but not like that.
The Day Before IT Happened…
I had been working so many hours and I finally made some waves within the company, to be able to make a couple more dollars an hour, working the night shift. I decided to get up early that day and stay up all night as well. This way, I could get used to the new sleep schedule. I had spent the entire day cleaning my room and covering the windows with blankets to keep my room nice and dark during the sunny hours. I’ve always had a rough time with the “graveyard” shift. I watched my show and organized through things I’ve had since I was a child. I cleaned my house and reorganized all of my scrubs so that I wouldn’t have to struggle with the messes of transitioning from becoming an early riser to a night owl. All night, I did laundry and made sure that I binged all the shows that I had been missing.
07/17/2010 THE Day…
Since I had stayed up the night before, when the sun rose, I decided that maybe staying up a little later would be beneficial. I had to work this night and I wanted to make sure that I was on top of my sleep. I grabbed myself some energy drinks from the gas station down the street.
My father was newly single and had plans for his “flavor of the week” to come over and have a friendly cooking competition. They were planning on seeing who had the best homemade barbeque sauce recipe and who could cook the best beef ribs. She was a sweet older lady from Texas and made it very clear as to how tough she could be. I kind of liked her, but only as a friendly type for my dad. I always read the women he brought over and tested their limits with “the feisty (boyfriend’s) daughter” attitude. It was my duty, or at least I thought it was.
She came over around 9 a.m. Something just kept me awake. I couldn’t make out what this gut feeling was. It was just a nagging urge to stay awake as long as I could. I kept telling myself that if I didn’t get to sleep soon, I’d regret it tonight when I would be trying to stay awake at work the whole night.
She, my dad, and I sat around to shoot the shit for a while. I ate some breakfast and before I knew it, I was having some lunch. Figuring that I didn’t have to work until 10 p.m., 1 p.m. would be a perfect time to get to sleep. It’d give me 8 hours of sleep and time enough to get showered, ready, and off to work right on time. So, I just kept staying awake.
It’s funny the kinds of things you remember thinking. I remember more of my thoughts about the amount of sleep I could get, than much of the conversations, on this day.
12:30 p.m. came along and I had finally decided that I would go lay down and get my favorite movie (at the time “Talladega Nights”) going. Usually, I’d start to fall asleep right around the half-hour mark. Laying there in my favorite t-shirt and underwear, I settled into the drifting off stage of sleep. This is that part of sleep where you still hear everything, but your eyes are closed and you’re not going to open them. So, if you were to be disturbed by anything, you would definitely be muddled or disconnected from reality for a moment. Slowly, I started to float further into deep sleep. Noises disappeared and all my attention was now on the back of my eyelids.
My phone rang. Suddenly, the light from the television became really bright and the laughter from the other room blared right along with the phone ringing. I answered, but it took a moment to realize that it was my mother on the other line.To Be Continued…
