So tired these days

Having a 9AM class twice a week means I have to get on a bus at 7 (the bus that leaves at 8 would not quite make it on time). This means that twice a week I have to get up at 6:15.

I don't even start getting tired until 11PM or so most days, and I think my ideal sleep schedule is from 1-11. (This never happens except on Fridays and sometimes saturdays).

Even on days when I don't have to go to school, I have work starting late morning and have to do school and get ready before that. Or I have church at 9ish. Anyway, the point is that like most teenagers, I severely lack sleep. I find it hard to stay awake in my 9AM class most days, and I frequently fall asleep on the bus (both on the way there and the way back).

No matter how tired I am, I'm usually able to force myself out of bed, to shine my phone in my face until my brain is stimulated enough, etc.
Last night I went to bed at around 1:30 AM. I was tired for sure. I had an alarm set for 7 so that I could get a good start on my day. 5 and a half hours isn't a lot at all, but I survived on 5 with some help from caffeine yesterday and have done similar things many times.
But today was the tiredest I've ever been.

My alarm went off at 7. Immediately I decided I was still too tired to function. I did some quick determining in my head that I could afford to sleep until 8:30... And then I lapsed back into unconsciousness briefly until the determination to set an alarm woke me just enough to accomplish the task. I was also parched, so I took a couple sips of water from my bedside cup and turned onto my back.

I fell asleep before I could even swallow. I woke (again, just barely) to the feeling of water trickling down my cheek. I allowed it to descend into my throat and promptly fell asleep again.


SIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGH.

To apologize

I could make a ton of excuses and apologies as to why I haven't been blogging but you've heard them all before: school, work, the balance of the two. I don't think I'm letting anyone down except myself, because honestly nobody really reads my blog regularly except emma and I live with her now so she knows what goes down. The sad part is that this part in my life will be a big old blank when I read back through my life history.

And it really is kind of a blank. My creative output is very low right now. I'm taking a lot in and putting a lot out (though it all feels like busywork) and it's kind of too much and the free time I have gets sucked away watching anime and browsing tumblr.

I know I should be more proactive. I should be spending my time drawing pictures rather than looking at them. I should be writing instead of scrolling endlessly past stuff that is sometimes interesting.

I know.

I think school and work at the same time is just too much for me to handle. I'm doing it but I don't feel like myself, you know? Me is the person who needs time to be vacant, me is the one who rambles on about stuff normal people don't think about, me is staying up until 4 AM reorganizing my room and sleeping until 11 even if I went to bed at midnight. Me is the person who really wants to make comics.

I won't say my blog is officially on hiatus, but it effectively is. I never seem to have the time. And I'll think of things I want to blog and forget them or even write them down but never follow through. I feel so full in the head, so mechanical and sort of dead creatively if that makes any sense because my brain is stuffed with being a responsible and well-balanced adult.

I know grades don't define you but I don't know HOW to not do well. I do as little studying as I think I can get away with and it still eats all my time because what I think of as "getting by" is knowing it all and I'm getting b's and c's on my government tests and I don't care but at the same time it's not as freeing as I thought it would be to break my 4.0, I still want to do as well as possible and I think nobody's really going to care about how well I did in college so long as I finish but I'm such a perfectionist and I know these things CAN affect your future in a terrible goal oriented way and I know life goes on even if you're a failure but the problem is I don't want to be a failure and anything below close-to-perfection feels like failing and I do not want to work in foodservice for the rest of my life.

It just stinks because I also don't want to starve and I'm not sure how to make art pay the bills.
I have a potential small job that I could possibly get but I doubt it's actually going to happen because I'm already so pressed for time that I haven't even finished the book I'm supposed to read before an interview and time is going by so fast and I don't think I can commit to something else even if it's just 8 hours a week. I'm super stressed and trying to cram in the government studying because I'm trying to free up november because I'm a stubborn soul and I want to do nanowrimo despite all this.

not only is my creative life a wreck but my spiritual life feels crummy too. I've completely lost the reading-my-bible habit and I always forget to pray and I don't know what to do and I feel so lost and swamped and I try to pray when I remember but then it always feels like I'm not getting through or something like my prayers aren't good enough or maybe I'm just not listening good enough because I know God hears me and I know He loves me and I KNOW all these things but I just can't feel it and that sounds really lame to me because thinking is much more important than feeling to me but despite all that I want to feel SOMETHING. I don't want to feel stagnant and I know it takes effort on my end and that if I ask/seek/knock etc He'll answer and I can see Him moving in the lives of my friends and stuff but I feel so trapped

just

I'm stuck in this dumb thing called "the real world" and sometimes I wonder how important it is to do all these things you're supposed to do and I'm stuck in my head and my responsibilities and I hardly have time to sleep or daydream

I can't leave those things behind

call them childish but my imagination is important to me and I don't just want to creatively solve problems and I don't want to just creatively write school papers, I want to make up stories that have absolutely no point, I want to make up stories with a very good point, I want to doodle and I want to draw to a purpose and I need space and I need time and right now I have very little of that

like I have literal space okay in general I get my alone time and sharing a room is not that bad, that's not the issue, I need mind space. I need less stuff in my head but like what can I cut out?

Can't cut work because work pays the bills.
Can't cut school because I've made a commitment to finish, my parents have paid for the semester and after this there's only one more to go and I know I can and should get that closure
Don't want to cut tumblr because that's where I keep tabs on what the community I'm interested in is up to, I get amusing and interesting and pretty things.
Don't want to cut anime because it's super cute and I don't actually get that much time to watch it in the first place and I'm in the middle of like 3 ones I really like right now.

I guess the solution would be to just cut down on the time I do tumblr. 30 minutes a day maybe. It might give me an hour or more each day
doesn't seem like a lot since it takes me almost an hour to do a lot of things that might take 30 minutes for some people

I find myself taking my time with things because I feel like I'll go crazier than I am if I don't

but hey maybe I'll get more than 6 hours of sleep a night sometimes

it stinks because I'm never ready to go to bed at 10 or 11 yet most days I have to be up at 6ish or 7ish or 8ish at the latest. It's currently 2 am and I'm considering sleep

I'm not made to work this way ok

also in final notes it is fall and I love fall a whole lot
I'm strongly considering moving to Portland Oregon in a couple years or something it's just sort of a dream I'm entertaining

still don't like coffee
excited for halloween this year because i'm on my own and candy+costumes+the color scheme+silly bats and cartoon ghosts = yes
also cheap wigs after halloween
and striped tights are more readily available I did indeed purchase some

sigh

still doing the one-thing-a-day stuff but in my current blogging position you might not see another one until december and maybe I'll do a mega catchup post who knows

see you noodles later