A love letter to my tired body
I would like to describe exactly how tired I am in effort to focus on something for an extended period of time. Because when I’m this tired I have trouble focusing on anything, including describing how tired I am. But I’m going to try.
Some people are fine with five, four, even three hours of sleep for nights on end. I am not one of these people. I need consistent, decent, uninterrupted sleep-at least eight hours-in order to perform on any sort of acceptable level. This is my greatest flaw.
My eyes hurt. They feel sunken into my head and my eyelids are dry, sore, and scratchy. There’s a throb in my eyeballs that pulses thickly with each heart beat. The blood vessels in them that were once minute, tiny, and invisible to onlookers are now throbbing, sanguine highways. The corners of my eyes burn when lid meets lid, and, more than likely, there’s some sort of liquid encrusted there that I can’t brush away. My forehead feels one thousand times larger than it really is-some sort of vast wasteland behind which nothing happens. The good news is, because no action occurs within, my forehead wrinkles have all but disappeared.
The area between my spine and shoulders feels like brick pudding; it is something, at first glance, one would expect to be soft and pliable, but once touched, it’s clear that the expected softness is something else, entirely-shoulder-shaped bricks covered in flesh. My abdomen barks loudly at intermittent moments, speaking out against the condition of its environs, “How dare you subject me to such circumstance! Until you elevate my situation I will continue to talk back to you.” It has prodded its way out of shape and protrudes unbecomingly in the front of my body.
My limbs move with only the most passionate and cheerful coaxing. To cross my legs comfortably on my supposedly ergonomic chair I must lift each, leaden thigh with both of my hands. This is difficult since raising my arms is also a weighty task. Once crossed, my leg of greatest altitude threatens at each small, body movement to crash indelicately onto the unyielding, outdoor-carpeted floor beneath my boots.
Even my toes are immobile in their square, formidable toe boxes. They refuse to move and don’t even balk against their nylon casings, which, on a normal day, would make them very sweaty with anger.
This is how tired I am.
Some people are fine with five, four, even three hours of sleep for nights on end. I am not one of these people. I need consistent, decent, uninterrupted sleep-at least eight hours-in order to perform on any sort of acceptable level. This is my greatest flaw.
My eyes hurt. They feel sunken into my head and my eyelids are dry, sore, and scratchy. There’s a throb in my eyeballs that pulses thickly with each heart beat. The blood vessels in them that were once minute, tiny, and invisible to onlookers are now throbbing, sanguine highways. The corners of my eyes burn when lid meets lid, and, more than likely, there’s some sort of liquid encrusted there that I can’t brush away. My forehead feels one thousand times larger than it really is-some sort of vast wasteland behind which nothing happens. The good news is, because no action occurs within, my forehead wrinkles have all but disappeared.
The area between my spine and shoulders feels like brick pudding; it is something, at first glance, one would expect to be soft and pliable, but once touched, it’s clear that the expected softness is something else, entirely-shoulder-shaped bricks covered in flesh. My abdomen barks loudly at intermittent moments, speaking out against the condition of its environs, “How dare you subject me to such circumstance! Until you elevate my situation I will continue to talk back to you.” It has prodded its way out of shape and protrudes unbecomingly in the front of my body.
My limbs move with only the most passionate and cheerful coaxing. To cross my legs comfortably on my supposedly ergonomic chair I must lift each, leaden thigh with both of my hands. This is difficult since raising my arms is also a weighty task. Once crossed, my leg of greatest altitude threatens at each small, body movement to crash indelicately onto the unyielding, outdoor-carpeted floor beneath my boots.
Even my toes are immobile in their square, formidable toe boxes. They refuse to move and don’t even balk against their nylon casings, which, on a normal day, would make them very sweaty with anger.
This is how tired I am.