(no subject)
for my creative writing class:
On Sleep
Sleep and I have a love hate relationship. I love it when I’m doing it, but when I’m fully conscious it seems like nothing more than an inconvenience. I rarely make it to bed before 1am and rise by 9 most mornings, leaving 7-8 hours of my precious days consumed with sleep. That is far too much time. I could be reading that novel I’ve been itching to read for the past 6 months, studying Russian, baking lemon poppy seed muffins, hatching a plan to save the world. All of those are worthwhile pursuits that I could imagine being lovely things to do at 3am, when I am the only person up, resisting the conventions of sleep. But I would eventually fall prey to deliriousness and eventually crash and waste the better part of 24 hours in a sleep coma on my bed. There has to be a balance somewhere.
There is a way to do it all. By sleeping only 6-7 hours a night, I am maximizing my time in the conscious world as mush as is healthily possible. I have a glorious 17 hours to dispose of during the day, to rush around to class, to tennis practice, to orchestra. And there is always time for naps, lovely naps that are often more rewarding than sleeping, because you never appreciate the softness of your bed more than during the middle of the day when your eyelids are droopy and you think you cannot go on without a short bout of sleep.
I do love my sleep at times. I loathe getting up in the morning, when I am comfortably ensconced under my down comforter with my stuffed octopus Juan Carlos. It is in those moments when I forget any sort of hate for sleep and cling onto it with both hands, pressing the button on my alarm to stay in that delicious unconscious state for 10 more minutes.
I also adore the dreams that come with sleep. Dreams are one of my favorite things in the world, like reading a book by you that you forgot you wrote, some things familiar and some things that you don’t recognize. I love the glorious feelings that you can wake up with, that sometimes stay with you all day. Sometimes I awake from wonderful dreams only to realize that they aren’t true, bringing a sinking feeling to the pit of my stomach. In my dreams I have been shot in the chest, been kissed under a porch, been to an abandoned house in the middle of a cornfield, been in multiple car accidents. Dreams have become some of my most cherished memories.
Sleep is a fact of life. I have to put up with it. And though I might fight it, it always comes sometime or another, and it is never as bad as I thought. Someday, if and when my life calms down, I might grow to love it, prioritize it above all else even. If that happens, I will welcome it with open arms.
On Sleep
Sleep and I have a love hate relationship. I love it when I’m doing it, but when I’m fully conscious it seems like nothing more than an inconvenience. I rarely make it to bed before 1am and rise by 9 most mornings, leaving 7-8 hours of my precious days consumed with sleep. That is far too much time. I could be reading that novel I’ve been itching to read for the past 6 months, studying Russian, baking lemon poppy seed muffins, hatching a plan to save the world. All of those are worthwhile pursuits that I could imagine being lovely things to do at 3am, when I am the only person up, resisting the conventions of sleep. But I would eventually fall prey to deliriousness and eventually crash and waste the better part of 24 hours in a sleep coma on my bed. There has to be a balance somewhere.
There is a way to do it all. By sleeping only 6-7 hours a night, I am maximizing my time in the conscious world as mush as is healthily possible. I have a glorious 17 hours to dispose of during the day, to rush around to class, to tennis practice, to orchestra. And there is always time for naps, lovely naps that are often more rewarding than sleeping, because you never appreciate the softness of your bed more than during the middle of the day when your eyelids are droopy and you think you cannot go on without a short bout of sleep.
I do love my sleep at times. I loathe getting up in the morning, when I am comfortably ensconced under my down comforter with my stuffed octopus Juan Carlos. It is in those moments when I forget any sort of hate for sleep and cling onto it with both hands, pressing the button on my alarm to stay in that delicious unconscious state for 10 more minutes.
I also adore the dreams that come with sleep. Dreams are one of my favorite things in the world, like reading a book by you that you forgot you wrote, some things familiar and some things that you don’t recognize. I love the glorious feelings that you can wake up with, that sometimes stay with you all day. Sometimes I awake from wonderful dreams only to realize that they aren’t true, bringing a sinking feeling to the pit of my stomach. In my dreams I have been shot in the chest, been kissed under a porch, been to an abandoned house in the middle of a cornfield, been in multiple car accidents. Dreams have become some of my most cherished memories.
Sleep is a fact of life. I have to put up with it. And though I might fight it, it always comes sometime or another, and it is never as bad as I thought. Someday, if and when my life calms down, I might grow to love it, prioritize it above all else even. If that happens, I will welcome it with open arms.