Grow on, grow up, grow out. Move mountains.

It's 1:23 AM, and I am terrified to go to sleep.


Maybe this has something to do with the sensations of my face mimicking a mudslide into my brain after 10 seconds of shuteye. It might have something to do with my lungs vanishing after 15 seconds. It could even have something to do with my knowledge of my existence slipping away after 20 seconds, when I flinch back into reality and, more importantly, into my very real bed, with my very real comforter, which happens to not be doing a very good job of comforting me right now.


How I got to this inconvenient mental state is not important. All you need to know is large amounts of caffeinated drinks after 9 PM and Sudafed tablets should never, ever mix.


Ever.


Unless of course you want to be awake T-minus 6 hours until your next test, first thing in the normal waking morning, thinking about everything but communication in the business world.


Maybe, for some reason, you enjoy thinking about what your life is going to be like 13 weeks from now when you won't have to set foot back into your dreaded high school ever again. Will you succeed? Will you even try? What are you doing with your life, sweetheart?


Eight straight hours of school will become a foreign concept, as it has in summers past. If you want to see somebody, you can plan on seeing them for more than the 3 minutes between the 30 seconds you need to bolt to and from your tardy-policy-enforcing classrooms. Those confined dictatorships will no longer call mommy after the third time your in-depth conversation about the applications of modern religion and battle of the bands runs over in the hallway.


Life will be kind of nice. You'll actually have to try to maintain your friendships that you want to last. There will be no more passing-period rekindling of friendly flames. You're on your own now. You're free. Fly with it. Embrace the wind. Hug it a little bit.


Maybe after another 13 weeks, you'll start to think about everything you never thought about during your four years of deans' offices and dress codes. Maybe there will be somebody you shoved aside in pursuit of a better standing with your friends and yourself. Maybe this person had the potential to change your life. This person could have been that one person you've always dreamed you'd meet one day, and you would have no idea what you passed up. The only idea you'd have is the one telling you that you probably failed yourself in this aspect.


I still don't recommend mixing caffeine and sinus medicine. It's a terrible idea, unless you enjoy setting your brain on fire in your spare time. It's 1:44 AM, and this is not a good feeling.


Nonetheless: what are you doing with your life, sweetheart?


Are you sure?


Well, that's a nice idea.


But did you miss anything?

Tollways Give You Wings?

It's a monument. It's a statue of remembrance. It's a visual representation of one of the most random nights of my entire life. It's a little bit ridiculous; it's a can of Red Bull energy drink.

Sixteen hours late of my rude awakening for my AM job, I found myself driving out to Nickel City Arcade with a few awesome people from Elmhurst. We weren't strangers to this journey, but we were strangers to Jeremy printing out directions involving the tollway.

When I drove up to the booth, I handed the guy a dollar, and rather than reaching to make that little flimsy stick change direction, he reaches over and out and hands me three fresh cans of Red Bull. He says, “You guys like these, right?” Hell yeah, we like those. Thanks, man.

So we drive off, drink the GloryJuice, have an awesome time at the arcade with parachute men and nunchucks, and wake up completely unpoisoned the next morning. It was, indeed, glorious.

I think I'll question to the day I die just why this guy chose us to give those drinks to. In the meantime, all I can think about is how humanity isn't all bad, no matter what high school has so desperately tried to teach me all these years. Lesson learned: not all people suck. Sometimes.

I just felt like this sort of event couldn't go untold.