THE TIME OF MY LIFE

"You're half-assed, you waste time, you never finish anything that's not a bottle of wine or a bar of chocolate. You change your mind all of the time. You can't commit."

"Why are you telling me things that I already know?" I spoke like I didn't care but in truth it was disturbing to listen to. It was disturbing to know that all the little things I did in secret were being noted by somebody, and being logged in a computer for some stressed-out office nerd to read like I was some sort of solitaire game.

I was doing something that needed to be done and I felt the burden of it every step of the way. As they connected me and the phone rang, I began to think of hanging up. It wasn't just the phone call; it was having to follow through that bothered me.

If you think your life's a waste of time,

If you think your time's a waste of life,

Come over to this land, take a look around.

Is this a tragic situation,

Or a massive demonstration,

Where do we hide?

- Down on me, Aslan -

"These are all very acceptable things in modern society. You're sick; you go to the doctor, you get antibiotics. You're depressed; you talk to a therapist, they might give you antidepressants. Your grays show; you get your color done. But with your life you make a few bad decisions, get unlucky a few times, whatever, but you have to keep going, right? Nobody can see the underneath part of who you are, and if you can't see it-if an x-ray and a camera can't take a picture of it for you-in this day and age the belief is, it's not there..."

"...How else do you think life happens? A series of coincidences and occurrences have to happen somehow. Our lives all crash and collide and you think there's no reason or rhyme it? If there wasn't any reason for it all, what would be the point? Why do you think anything happens at all? There is an outcome, repercussions and occurrences to everybody you meet and everything you say..."

"The better I do for you [life], the more I alienate other people. What good is that for me?"
"Right now, not much, but down the line it'll pay off. They just need to get to know you."
"They [my friends] know me."
"You don't even know you, how can you expect them to?"

Life has a way of getting what it wants when it really knows what it wants.

"...If you have a dream, you want to at least be able to try to achieve it in some way. Something that is seemingly beyond your grasp but that you know that with a bit of hard work you could possibly achieve. Walking to your local newsstand to buy a lottery ticket is not inspiring. Dreams should make you think - if I had the guts to do it and I didn't care what anybody thought, this is what I'd really do."

I tried to think about my dreams, where I wanted to be, what I really wanted, but I think to know what you want, you have to know what you don't want and all I could figure out was that I really wished Life hadn't contacted me so I could have continued on the path I was on. Life had complicated things, Life had tried to make things move on when I was perfectly content.

"...I googled people's dreams. Because you're right. I didn't have one, which is rather pathetic, I should have one."
"I don't know which is more pathetic, not having a dream or googling other people's."

Again, I didn't like what I had but I didn't know what I wanted, so I was once again aimless.

I didn't want it to end like this, even though it had been me who had led it in this direction, but I couldn't bring myself to say anything.

"What does that shit even mean? Geological happiness?"
"Most people look for fulfillment and happiness within themselves; you, on the other hand, physically move to another county thinking it will help things."

I'd rather I never had to work again, I still hadn't found a passion for anything, that nauseating word I kept hearing people say to me, and even though I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life, I was starting to get on the right way of thinking.

By Cecelia Ahern