No Money:

This time I was broke. Emotionally. I was beginning to view both the best and the worst things with emotional detachment. This time, I was out of “money”. I was out of the energy and patience to put up with anything not urgent. I met The Annoyance on a tranquil friday. I had just come back from practice, and had gone over to my friend’s house to hang out. There, I met The Annoyance. A boring fellow who talked a lot. My goodness, it always had something to say.

You know what annoys me? It annoys me when people talk too much. People say less is more for a reason. It’s like some people go out of their way and try super hard to cover up the truth of how boring they are with their words. It grinds my gears. I tolerated The Annoyance anyway just to be nice. I just zoned out whenever it went on its forever-long tangents about whatever it was saying. That night we played a few games and chatted. We discussed random things -- more like I pretended to listen while The Annoyance babbled about random things. I wish I cared enough to remember what it was that it was saying to me, but I couldn’t. This time.

I refused to give it the time of day, or as it were, the time of night. I was stubbornly set in my preconceived notions about it and how it annoyed me. The funniest thing was when I realized we had so many things in common that I started to judge myself. How could I have be so quick to judge when I am always preaching about letting people be themselves and loving one another and all that jazz. I took a minute to look inwardly. What was I lacking that made me feel the need to criticize someone for the very person they are? I felt alone. Stressed out and alone.

The Annoyance was indeed annoying. I won’t retract that. But he also was interesting, sometimes hilarious, and knew music theory. He listened when I had something to say, even when -- especially when -- I cut him off mid sentence. Then the fire alarm went off. We got separated from our friends and walked over to one of my favorite places to go on campus. It was chilly out and when we spoke there was mist coming out of our mouths. We talked about favorite things. We talked about how we spent our time. We talked about death and the things that scare us. That time.

That time. We laughed, shared sad memories, laughed at those sad memories, and then we shared goldfish. Then we said goodbye forever. Wow.

This time I felt sad. I usually don’t miss annoying people. I usually am excited to never see annoying people again. This time I looked at the time and stared at it until my eyes grew weary and I snuggled under the warm blanket in my bed for what felt like two days. It was two days. I fell into a haze of sadness after getting to know someone I was thoroughly annoyed by. That time, I met someone that made me see myself differently.

This time. This time I cleaned my room and finished my to-do list to distract myself while I ignored his texts. This time, I am broke again.