(no subject)
so, in case it wasn't clear, i've gone in and out of periods of insomnia since i was 16.
well, i guess you'd call it insomnia. but don't get me wrong. it isn't, like, the cosby-show insomnia where you lie in bed and toss and turn and sit up and lie down and get a drink of water and turn off the dripping faucet... and someone cues the good-natured audience laughter because it's quaint and endearing and you know it'll end the next day during that important-but-oh-so-boring meeting.
my insomnia has, um, agency. once i get into my bed, i usually sleep alright. it's the process of actually inserting my body between the sheets there that has me stumped. is there such a thing as sleep-o-phobia? i don't know how else to explain it. i'm afraid to sleep. i fear my brain when it's unsupervised. it does not-nice things. and then you have to wake, you know? which is probably one of the worse parts of nightmares.
it's easy to tell when i'm not sleeping. i can tell because it's late at night and the house is quiet and my eyes are still open, rather than the more-desirable um, closed. however, the measure of the relative seriousness of my insomnia is that i wake up and my very first (and only) thought is, "when can i squeeze in some sleep today?"
i don't care who you are. that is a not-good thing to be thinking.
there, in the dark of my bedroom, at 6:15 this morning, i stumbled to the phone, called my boss's number, and left her a message. "hey, p. it's 6:15 and just so you know, i'm going back to bed. i might be in to work later. i might not. don't ask questions."
and, listen. it's not like i really slept all that much, right? just about... 3 more hours. i had a strange continuation dream where i was trying to bring the monsters who'd been doing the maiming and murdering during my first 45 minutes of sleep to some kind of justice. i can't decide which leg of the dream was more horrific -- the trauma of what the monsters had done, or the fact that no one would or could do anything about it.
i need to get me a good shrink.
anyway, the point of all of this is that after indulging myself just a little bit and managing to sleep a little bit more than usual, i feel... great.
i feel pretty happy, and optimistic, and when i think about the list of things i could/should be doing (which, granted, is pretty short), i don't feel like i'm drowning in the sea of inadequacy and self hate.
when i was younger, i persuaded my parents to buy me a tank of pet fish. go with me on this one...
listen, i had a pretty kick-ass aquarium going on. i bought smooth, black rocks for the bottom, and red and white lightbulbs for the overhead filter, and big clear red and white marbles to sit in the black rocks... and all of my fish had combinations white, red, black, and silver in their fins. i sat for hours, named each fish, and came up with systems for telling them apart from each other... the fish soothed and relaxed me and i loved them and their fishiness.
i loved my fish. say the word "fish" aloud. i swear it has the coolest taste in your mouth. fish. fish. "fissssccchhh" (-- sean connery).
as with all good childhood pet stories, of course, the fish story has a sad ending. this ain't no mister-rogers fish tale, where i get into the habit of changing my sweater and shoes each day just for the purpose of feeding the little guys.
oh, no. no neighborhood of makebelieve for me OR my art deco fishfriends. before too long, i didn't clean their water like i should have. i fed them... occasionally. sometimes when one would die, it would take me a couple of days to "get around" to trolling its dead carcass from the water and flushing it.
and, really, the first few times we had a john-side funeral, i was pretty broken up about it. i stood with the dripping green fishnet in one hand and the flush handle in the other and felt my little lower lip quiver as i said goodbye to little silver-streaked "gershwin."
i don't know why losing little "george" didn't inspire me to feed or clean his brothers better... but as the little guys went belly-up one by one, i lost more and more of my remorse until one day the red lightbulb went out and the filter churned through the dirty water and there were no more 20th-century composers left to eulogize.
and i kind of shrugged and said, "eh" and packed up the tank and the kick-ass black gravel and the marbles and flushed one last time, for good measure.
i'm afraid i'm getting nonchalant about what all of this mistreatment is doing to my health. i mean, i guess the difference here is that as long as you can find loose change between the couch cushions, you can buy yourself new fishes at walmart. but once your body is dead, it's dead. there ain't no trolley ride back to the neighborhood for you...
so i guess this day of higher energy is a little devastating in the sense that i realize just how affected i've been by the insomnia. three fucking hours have given me more energy than i remember having in months. i'm scared to think of what this is all really doing to me, in the end.
i mean -- wow. this is what energy feels like?
well, i guess you'd call it insomnia. but don't get me wrong. it isn't, like, the cosby-show insomnia where you lie in bed and toss and turn and sit up and lie down and get a drink of water and turn off the dripping faucet... and someone cues the good-natured audience laughter because it's quaint and endearing and you know it'll end the next day during that important-but-oh-so-boring meeting.
my insomnia has, um, agency. once i get into my bed, i usually sleep alright. it's the process of actually inserting my body between the sheets there that has me stumped. is there such a thing as sleep-o-phobia? i don't know how else to explain it. i'm afraid to sleep. i fear my brain when it's unsupervised. it does not-nice things. and then you have to wake, you know? which is probably one of the worse parts of nightmares.
it's easy to tell when i'm not sleeping. i can tell because it's late at night and the house is quiet and my eyes are still open, rather than the more-desirable um, closed. however, the measure of the relative seriousness of my insomnia is that i wake up and my very first (and only) thought is, "when can i squeeze in some sleep today?"
i don't care who you are. that is a not-good thing to be thinking.
there, in the dark of my bedroom, at 6:15 this morning, i stumbled to the phone, called my boss's number, and left her a message. "hey, p. it's 6:15 and just so you know, i'm going back to bed. i might be in to work later. i might not. don't ask questions."
and, listen. it's not like i really slept all that much, right? just about... 3 more hours. i had a strange continuation dream where i was trying to bring the monsters who'd been doing the maiming and murdering during my first 45 minutes of sleep to some kind of justice. i can't decide which leg of the dream was more horrific -- the trauma of what the monsters had done, or the fact that no one would or could do anything about it.
i need to get me a good shrink.
anyway, the point of all of this is that after indulging myself just a little bit and managing to sleep a little bit more than usual, i feel... great.
i feel pretty happy, and optimistic, and when i think about the list of things i could/should be doing (which, granted, is pretty short), i don't feel like i'm drowning in the sea of inadequacy and self hate.
when i was younger, i persuaded my parents to buy me a tank of pet fish. go with me on this one...
listen, i had a pretty kick-ass aquarium going on. i bought smooth, black rocks for the bottom, and red and white lightbulbs for the overhead filter, and big clear red and white marbles to sit in the black rocks... and all of my fish had combinations white, red, black, and silver in their fins. i sat for hours, named each fish, and came up with systems for telling them apart from each other... the fish soothed and relaxed me and i loved them and their fishiness.
i loved my fish. say the word "fish" aloud. i swear it has the coolest taste in your mouth. fish. fish. "fissssccchhh" (-- sean connery).
as with all good childhood pet stories, of course, the fish story has a sad ending. this ain't no mister-rogers fish tale, where i get into the habit of changing my sweater and shoes each day just for the purpose of feeding the little guys.
oh, no. no neighborhood of makebelieve for me OR my art deco fishfriends. before too long, i didn't clean their water like i should have. i fed them... occasionally. sometimes when one would die, it would take me a couple of days to "get around" to trolling its dead carcass from the water and flushing it.
and, really, the first few times we had a john-side funeral, i was pretty broken up about it. i stood with the dripping green fishnet in one hand and the flush handle in the other and felt my little lower lip quiver as i said goodbye to little silver-streaked "gershwin."
i don't know why losing little "george" didn't inspire me to feed or clean his brothers better... but as the little guys went belly-up one by one, i lost more and more of my remorse until one day the red lightbulb went out and the filter churned through the dirty water and there were no more 20th-century composers left to eulogize.
and i kind of shrugged and said, "eh" and packed up the tank and the kick-ass black gravel and the marbles and flushed one last time, for good measure.
i'm afraid i'm getting nonchalant about what all of this mistreatment is doing to my health. i mean, i guess the difference here is that as long as you can find loose change between the couch cushions, you can buy yourself new fishes at walmart. but once your body is dead, it's dead. there ain't no trolley ride back to the neighborhood for you...
so i guess this day of higher energy is a little devastating in the sense that i realize just how affected i've been by the insomnia. three fucking hours have given me more energy than i remember having in months. i'm scared to think of what this is all really doing to me, in the end.
i mean -- wow. this is what energy feels like?