sometimes i wake up in the middle of the night...
i've become addicted to the podcast "this american life," thanks to this guy. the host is the cousin of one of my favorite modern composers, which only furthered the addiction in a weird sort of way. hmm. kinda funny, actually. i used to listen to his music to fall asleep. his score to "the hours" remains my favorite soundtrack of all time. anyway, one episode grabbed my attention: titled "fear of sleep," which you can find here (i hope). got me thinking. not about anything intelligent, because we all know i never have anything to do with that sort of nonsense, but it made me think of all of us that have issues in the slumber department. made me think of the friends i've made over midnight chats. reminded me how much i miss the ones i don't/can't talk to. it made me realize that there are a lot of us, even a high concentration here on xanga. and it made me think of some of the things that keep me up and some of the things that made me want to stay asleep.
it's funny how being stripped of something as simple as an illusion can still leave you feeling like you've lost a part of yourself. i suppose when you've held it for so long, willing the vapors to become substantial, you begin to trick yourself into thinking they are. but eventually you have to wake up. sometimes i try not to. sometimes i try to go back to sleep and linger in the dream a little longer. sometimes that works. other times i don't wake up properly, and i'm stuck halfway between the two, paralyzed, with the "devil on my chest," as they described it in that podcast. most of the time it just slips away, gossamer threads in the breeze--the insubstantial fibers that, for a moment, i thought i could build a happy life with.
sometimes i wake up in the middle of the night, or rather i just don't go to sleep in the first place, because i feel like i've wasted another day. it's like i'm suddenly acutely aware of the passage of time, and by refusing to sleep i'll somehow stem the flow--a finger in a leaky dam. i'll have more time to accomplish something, more time to make something of myself, more time to wait for someone to come over and fall asleep with me. so i sit there and wait for things to happen. it doesn't work that way, i know. god knows how many of you have told me that i have to try at life for anything to happen, that i have to work for it. but i'm a coward. i'm afraid of failure. i'm intensely horrified by it. paralyzed. so i don't try. right now, as i type this, i'm thinking about how i have to go to work tonight--a rather meaningless job--and all i want to do is to go back to sleep. i shouldn't be tired. i had my eight hours last night. but part of me doesn't even want to try, not even at that.
i'm rediscovering that life is trial and error. it's not a story that you can organize and outline and turn the numbered pages and read it like a novel with an inevitably happy ending. it's more like a choose your own adventure book. you jump around. you make wrong decisions, you say the wrong things. those have consequences. sometimes you can go back, most of the time you can't. you live with it. you keep going. somehow. and somewhere in all the screw ups you're supposed to learn how to do it right. but what i do, this doing nothing, is still a choice. saying "fuck it" and turning to my books or movies or cooking or cross-stitching or whatever other satin bed sheets i escape in is still a choice to avoid the adventure, or whatever the heck it is. it's about time for me to get into a normal sleep schedule. wake up in the morning. be awake through the day. do things. write. fucking write. go to bed at night. sleep.
it's about time i take some responsibility for my life. i'm going to be twenty-six in a month. little less. time to grow up.