Accepting a Pattern as Fixed Creates its Permanence

The sky is gray today. 

It was gray yesterday too, though yesterday isn't quite the right word anymore. 

Time hasn't really been working all that great, seeing as I've lived the same day 120 times now. 

And today makes one more. 

Yes, I’ve been keeping track, though lately, even that feels pointless. Turns out, time’s only interesting when it moves.

Now a little about me. 

I live in a town so boring it could qualify as a sedative.

There's one diner, a library, a bar, and a bookstore that doubles as a post office. 

And then there’s a clock tower on the town hall that hasn’t worked since before I was born. Seems fitting. 

Every morning I wake up at exactly 7:29 to the same dog barking in the neighbor's yard. 

Then it's the usual: breakfast, French practice, stare out the window, read for a bit, play the piano, freak people out by predicting their behavior, have a snack, and go for a walk. You get the deal. 

The day unrolls like a rerun. Every. Single. Time. 

I keep track, mostly of little things. 

What I said and what I didn't. Whether I turned left instead of right. Whether I spoke to the man with the cane or ignored him.

I tweak what I can too: knock over a vase in the café, confess secrets to strangers. I once left notes under the park bench, screamed at the top of my lungs, and even tried staying up all night. None of it worked. 

I tested the edges of the day like it was a maze with a hidden exit. 

And every time, I'd wake up again, 7:29 AM, dog barking. Still hoping that maybe, just maybe, this time will be different. That something might finally give. 

Which leads us to today, where I'm trying something new.

The sky's gray again, because of course it is, and there's this tremor in the air, like static before a storm.

I've decided I'm done. Not with life, if that's what you were thinking. I mean, I'm done searching for a way out.

I used to think that the day was broken. That if I just found the right variable and solved for X (where X = not waking up in this tragic sitcom again), I could escape. 

I had hope, early on, that maybe something I did, anything, might stick. 

But every time I tried something new, the day swallowed it whole like it was nothing. 

And recently, I’ve started to feel the same way. Like nothing I do matters. Like I don’t matter. 

It’s a strange kind of heartbreak. To try your hardest and watch the world forget you by morning. 

Lately, I'm starting to think it's not the day that's stuck. 

It's me.

So you could call today rock bottom. 

I'm so tired of watching the same things happen.

Tired of knowing exactly what comes next. 

Tired of trying to fix this stupid, unbreakable pattern. 

So maybe out of delusion or boredom... today, I'm living like I'm free. 

Pretending, so to speak, that this is a new day. 

Forget the things that happened, because maybe they haven't happened yet. 

Feel surprised when the dog breaks its leash chasing a squirrel. 

Happy when the blueberries go on sale. 

Sad when the girl on the park bench cries into her book. 

Smile when the barista cracks a joke I've heard a hundred times. 

And understand that things can't change if I haven't.

In the evening I walk, not toward anything in particular. 

Then passing through town center, I remember the old broken clock and glance up. 

Same chipped face. Same faded numbers. 

But the hands have moved.

The time is 1:22.