Sleep

Photo by Михаил Калегин on Unsplash

Going down the hill
I see people dancing about to easy flowing music.
A smooth song plays, and you can see the relaxed joy on their faces.
Songs from the past that remind them of their youth.
Songs that made them rise-up and shake their bums with their friends back in the day.

The freedom
to be young and dumb
to drink, to smoke
to sing
to laugh and dance.
The joy of no worries.
We are living for tonight and tomorrow doesn’t matter.

I am here with my friends, my best friends in the whole world.
The night is young, the music is loud, the drinks go down easily.
Our future is in front of us.

These are the moments. These are the memories in the making.

These are the memories we will look upon while we lay in bed at night dreading the day ahead.

How did I get so far off track? How did I end up so far in debt? What happened to living how I wanted to live?

Now I sleep to dream of the good old days when friends cared how you were doing instead of comparing how you are doing.

The latest technology that is ever present. The car that is just payment after payment.
And don’t even get me started on the mortgage for a house that is too big, and too filled with things trying to make me happy.

Sleep is what I do so I can relive my glory days.

— Nicole Barden 1/1/2021

Originally published in Genius in a Bottle on Medium