how much is a time speeding up device anyway?

I wish I could speed up time so that it was next summer and I'd be graduated, moved out into my own place and my life would be totally different and totally what I've been planning for years.

For now, there's just these things to do, to fulfill my dreams, my wishes, my plans. Sometimes they are just drudgery, like cleaning the bathroom or doing homework or going to and from my varied jobs. Sometimes they are so great and wonderful, like buying little things for the new place from Urban Outfitters; from which I have collected bright orange and magenta kitchen towels, shot glasses with cute cartoons on the sides and dishes with delicate chandeliers painted on them--and, get this, all on clearance.

I know that I should enjoy and appreciate every day for what it has to offer, but I've always been a looking ahead person. Whether it's five minutes or five years, I'm trying to figure out how it's gonna go and who I'm going to have to be to get there. I have a hard time just being in the moment that's happening right now.

Lately I've been getting better at savoring time. I'm not so antsy, so concerned, so anticipatory. I think it has a lot to do with expending my energy into artistic realms and getting all the things that I need to do done.

I kind of regret that I never knew how to appreciate the moments as they came. I think it's made my life a little dull, a little routine, a little joyless.

For instance, part of the reason I can't wait for it to be next year already is that I can't wait to get away from my roommates. Don't get me wrong, they're alright, but I've spent a lot of the last three years sort of dealing with them whenever I want to be with Eric and I'm just tired. Because I see them as this obstacle, I avoid them and try not to be home when they are. (This tatic actually works pretty well, considering how much I favor the out-of-sight-out-of-mind phenomenon.) And yet, I lose time with Eric. I come home and feel like I'm never really home. I feel kind of fake and phony when I'm around them.

Worse yet, they have no idea that I see them as a problem and everyone else in my life has heard me bitch and moan about it endlessly (in my misguided attempts to prove how right I am). So everyone who loves me naturally tries to make me happy by not talking to them or being curt and polite. Except for Eric. He makes no apologies for being just the same around them, because after all, they are his best friends, he went to college with them and has known them for years.

The thing is, on one hand, I don't want to be the source of tension, but I also don't want to feel like I'm sharing my boyfriend with them. And maybe it's a me and him thing to work on, which we've been doing, but it seems like no matter how much time we spend together, the time with them is what he talks about, laughs over, remembers well. All of this crap just makes me pretty unhappy every time I set foot into this place. So that's why I can't wait for it to be next year already.

Then I think, well, why not just clear the air? Why not just lay it all on the table? Tell them everything. Part of me wonders if it'll just make things worse. Part of me wonders if I'm just too uptight...after all, Eric thinks they're wonderful and great and doesn't see the things I see. Part of me wonders why I don't see what he sees about them.

Is it because my college experience has been so different? That I've never really had roommates (unless you count a brief situation while I dated Vinny nearly ten years ago)? That I am a person who likes things a particular way? That I'm an adult and I can put away my dirty dishes whenever I please? That I don't have friends as close as they are? Am I really this much of a fucking whiny nitpicky bitch?

Or, as a woman I babysit for said (about herself), is it just that I always know the best way to do everything?

See, part of me thinks it'd be different if they were a number of things...warm, inviting, pleasant, lively, artistic, avid about something, always up to something new and different and interesting. But aside from a few glimpses of these attributes here and there, this is most certainly not how they are to me. Eric has friends like that and I adore them. Eric is like that and I adore him.

But I can't change them and there's still nearly eight months left. Will I spend it always looking ahead and discouraged by what's in front of me? Will I try to swallow the bitter taste in my throat and be great with them? I don't know. It depends on the day and how I'm feeling.