It’s currently 5:32 a.m. on May 1, 2024. Bloody hell.

I don’t even know where I want to begin with this, I just couldn’t sleep and decided what better way to burn the expired midnight oil than to write what’s likely my last piece in high school journalism. It feels like an obligation to write a high school career obituary for my swan song; but, I don’t want to do that. I’m exhausted.

It’s now 5:37 a.m., and I spent the last five minutes writing a little under 80 words so far.

When I started this class back in sophomore year, I was desperate to find a support to lean on; I wanted something to do after wasting away on a chair in front of a laptop at home for the majority of my freshman year. Hell, even then I was exhausted.

I can hear the birds chirping outside already, I never realized how late I’ve been staying up lately.

The worst part is, that I’m not exhausted in one way. I’m not just deprived of sleep, I’m deprived of time to spend not doing school work, I’m deprived of time spent not worrying about someone else, I’m deprived of time spent just being who I am; but above all else, I’m deprived of peace of mind.

It’s currently 5:44, and I just checked my word count; does that even matter here?

Originally, I was going to write about my first memory of walking into Greiner’s room. Originally, I was going to list all the memories I made in newspaper class. Maybe I will, I don’t know right now at this moment; right now, I’m just exhausted. Right now, I’m ignoring all the grammar corrections Google wants to give me because that doesn’t matter to me right now; the amount of time I’ve spent doing school assignments has made me so bloody worried about hitting a word count, making sure my grammar is punctuated correctly, and praying that my writing is to a T.

I’m looking at my alarm clock right now, about eight minutes have passed so far; I’m hesitant to even go to school today.

My hopes were high for senior year, and I won’t be pessimistic and say that it was horrible; it was fun, sometimes. So many people were in my high school life that I cared about, and there were so many people that I worried about too. I remember spending some exhaustive nights making sure they were okay through texts, I remember peering at my clock and seeing it be 1 in the morning but I still had to make sure they were okay. Even when they offered to let me vent to them in exchange for letting them vent to me, I was hesitant. I hated venting.

Currently, it is 5:57 a.m.; the sun is starting to rise, I think. I’m too exhausted to lift the blinds and check.

I recall at the end of junior year my dad asking me after school if I needed to go to the hospital. At that moment I was confused; I felt fine, at least that’s what I think fine feels like. He said I looked like a corpse. I remember going to the bathroom and looking at myself in the mirror, I looked awful; my eye bags looked like black eyes, my skin was greenish pale from being sick all the time, I didn’t even know who I was looking at. At this current moment, at the end of my senior year, I’m starting to lose who I look like again; I’m starting to look like myself in the mirror. I’m exhausted from seeing whoever the hell that is in the mirror all the time.

It’s now past 6 a.m., and I just now noticed how blurry my vision has gotten from not sleeping recently.

Right now, as I’m sitting on the couch with a blaring migraine, I realize how little peace I have in my mind right now, and you know what, it’s funny. It’s funny because I don’t even know what that feeling feels like; peace of mind sounds so far, so abstract, and so exhausting to try to attain.

Currently, my clock says it’s 6:11 a.m.; I have school in about 3 hours, and I haven’t slept at all yet.

Maybe I’m not in the right state of mind to write this piece, but I’m too exhausted to care. Call it senioritis, call it being lazy, call it over-exaggerating, call it lying, but right now I’m calling it bloody exhaustion. If you started reading this piece expecting to find a list of all my favorite memories from high school or newspaper class, sorry, but this piece doesn’t have it written down. This piece isn’t written as a last hooray, or as a last sendoff, or even as something involved with newspaper class.

I’m sorry, but I’m exhausted; too exhausted to say anything else but thank you all for giving me some peace of mind.