Help Wanted, Desperately by Ariel Horn

Author:Ariel Horn
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2004-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

Between responding to the “What are you doing with your life?” question from relatives and telling or not telling various people my age what I plan or don’t plan on doing with my life, I’ve reached all-out desperation. And the fact that I am slowly starting to think that maybe Majuro would be good for me, that maybe I don’t need to go to New York, that maybe I would love Majuro more than I would love any entry-level job in New York, has made me realize that I’ve reached an entirely new, unprecedented level of desperation. I’ve genuinely started to lose hope in myself. Hence, the blitzkrieg. But there is one more reason to plan my blitzkrieg right now.

When I was twelve years old, I saw a bumper sticker that said, “Today is the best day of your life.” I found it kind of hokey but inspiring at the same time, in the way that only a twelve-year old could. I went home and wrote on an index card in black magic marker, “Alexa Hoffman, today is going to be the best day of your life!” Then I pasted the card next to my bed, so when I woke up in the morning, it would be the first thing that I saw (provided Nina didn’t hold my nose to wake me up, which had been a trend at the time). So each day, when I woke up, I’d say out loud, “Alexa Hoffman, today is going to be the best day of your life.” And then maybe it would work. That was the plan.

Granted, it never worked—I can’t remember any of those days being the best of my life (especially that day in the eighth grade when I danced with the chubby unpopular kid at some middle-school dance and then he claimed we were dating). But when I got to college, I put the sign up again during my freshman and sophomore years, for old time’s sake. Maybe the more you believed the day would be the best one of your life, the more likely it would come true.

But sophomore year, I had a bout with insomnia. I had simply forgotten how to sleep. Night after night, I would try to will myself to sleep, but I just couldn’t do it. I took sleeping pills. I took Tylenol PM, and I even bought really terrible CDs that promised they would “lull me to sleep.” (What they really did was make me pissed off any time I heard Pachelbel’s Canon in D.) There was nothing I wouldn’t do to bore myself to sleep: I read roommates’ economics textbooks; I blindfolded myself with black tights; I cried on the phone to Jared, begging him to keep his eyes open just a minute longer to keep me company. I used earplugs; I recited all the lyrics to Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat in my head. But to no avail. I just couldn’t sleep. I was exhausted and horribly lonely at 4 A.

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