Advice.

Today was quite possibly one of the worst days I have ever experienced.

I'm generally a happy person. Sure, I work myself to death, but most of the time I feel like it's masochistically therapeutic.
Not today.

Today began at 4:50 AM after finishing my Arabic homework. Now, you need to understand something about me. I do all my work before I let myself relax. If I am doing homework at 4:50 AM, it is because I have been doing homework ever since class ended. I don't believe in taking breaks. Anyway, I finally finish my last page of simple sentences ("Did you have a blue car yesterday? No, I did not have a blue car yesterday. I had a red car yesterday."), tiptoe into my room so as not to wake the beautiful roommate I haven't seen awake in three full days (our schedules are entirely opposite), set four alarms (6:10, 6:12, 6:15, and 6:18), and fall into bed in the dress I wore to school.

Some time passes.

I awaken without any stimulus. It's strange, but for a moment I relish the feeling. Then I realize that there is sunshine in my room. I don't remember the last time I've seen sunshine in my room. Suddenly, I sit bolt upright. SUNSHINE??? I reach across to the dresser at the foot of my bed and grab for my phone. The digital readout offers me the information I'm looking for, indifferent to my swiftly accelerating emotional pace. 12:32. TWELVE THIRTY-TWO?!

I zoom to my bedroom door and open it right on top of my roommate, Christina.
"IT'S TWELVE THIRTY-TWO," I utter, crazed.
"Yeah...?" she replies.
"DO YOU KNOW WHAT THIS MEANS?"
"Did you just wake up?"
" I CAN'T BELIEVE IT. I T.A. FROM EIGHT TO TWELVE. I WAS SUPPOSED TO BE AT SCHOOL AT SEVEN."
"Oh my gosh...that sucks!"
"AAAURRRGH!"

In an act of childish frustration, I hurl the cell phone dangling from my limp fingers into the wall. I rush into my bedroom and rip a random outfit from my closet (disregarding the fact that it's freezing and raining), then comb through my hair and tear out the door. On the way to school, reality begins to set in. I missed five hours of work this morning. I let down a professor and thirty students. I didn't call, leave instructions, or otherwise arrange to be absent. What did everyone do? Did they wait for me? Did the professor have to skip another class to take over mine?
OH.
MY.
GOSH.

I have never failed in a professional capacity. I keep every commitment I make, whether that means I stay up all night performing reactions in my research lab or patiently tutoring people I don't have time to appease. I have very close to zero tolerance for those who don't feel as passionately as I do about professional obligations. What am I going to say to my professor? I have no excuse. I simply slept through class.
Sure, I'm taking 17.5 credits. Sure, I work three jobs. Sure, I maintain a 4.0. But that does not and should not afford me any leeway, not in my mind or in that of anyone else.

I slink my way into the Widtsoe building's elevator like a kicked puppy. I have become the person I hate. Upon reaching the seventh floor, I stand sapped outside the automatic doors, searching for words. Nothing seems adequate. Blankly, I walk up to my professor's office door, knock, and enter. "Hi!" He greets me with a smile, like nothing is wrong. I don't return his sentiment. "Hi," I reply shamefully. I sit down. "I have never been so professionally humiliated in my life," I offer. "Okay," he replies. Dispassionately, I string together the chain of events that led me to this moment, and he simply listens. I don't offer excuses or try and shift the blame to anyone but myself. I make it clear that I am absolutely embarrassed and incredibly sorry. We talk about my schedule and my life, and he tells me I'm crazy, that when I spread myself that thin, "everybody loses." I've been warned about this ever since I entered college, nineteen credits on my first freshman schedule and a backpack approximately the size and weight of a typical boulder. But for the first time in my life, this piece of advice clicks. Everybody loses. He's right. I have stretched myself so thin that my threads have finally snapped. I might have the willpower to live the life I've designed, but in all honesty, my body cannot take it. If I could, I'd stay up all night every night. Sleep is an annoyance; it gets in the way of my to-do lists. But it is necessary. Relationships, too, are necessary. Friends and ward activities and TV shows and creative writing and pleasure reading and aimless free time are necessary.

I am a person
and not a machine.

Today, this was made painfully apparent.
And maybe this time I'll learn.

On my way out, my understanding professor reassured me once again and offered me a fresh peach from his desk.
I took it.
It was delicious.