The Accumulating Detritus of Quotidian Memories
I'm sitting at Joe's table at 8:30 in the morning. I feel exactly the same as I did when I left nine hours before: sleepy, nauseous, disconnected. The lack of sleep is starting to build into a plaque that grows and pushes at the back of my eyes, at the pit of my stomach.
I think about how I used to love this feeling, thrive off it. The slight tremble in the hand that held the coffee or a spoon of cereal. I would feel, all day, no matter what, that I was going to throw up from the exhaustion. I anticipated the inevitable collapse, but it would always come days after I imagined it would.
By the end of freshman year, I could go a full day on only three hours sleep. Later, in my sophomore and junior years, I--and my mania--had whittled the time down to fifteen minutes. When I was manic, I could go a week getting somewhere between .25 and 3 hours of sleep a night. The hours of my day were expanded, had oozed and seeped until I considered 3 AM a part of my day, as valid a time as noon or 6 PM.
But this morning, I sat fatigued, hand shaking as I brought a spoonful of pink yogurt to my mouth. I felt like shit.
The old me would probably call this iteration of me a pussy. But I don't ever want to go back to thinking that that feeling is normal. I don't ever want that life again.
I think about how I used to love this feeling, thrive off it. The slight tremble in the hand that held the coffee or a spoon of cereal. I would feel, all day, no matter what, that I was going to throw up from the exhaustion. I anticipated the inevitable collapse, but it would always come days after I imagined it would.
By the end of freshman year, I could go a full day on only three hours sleep. Later, in my sophomore and junior years, I--and my mania--had whittled the time down to fifteen minutes. When I was manic, I could go a week getting somewhere between .25 and 3 hours of sleep a night. The hours of my day were expanded, had oozed and seeped until I considered 3 AM a part of my day, as valid a time as noon or 6 PM.
But this morning, I sat fatigued, hand shaking as I brought a spoonful of pink yogurt to my mouth. I felt like shit.
The old me would probably call this iteration of me a pussy. But I don't ever want to go back to thinking that that feeling is normal. I don't ever want that life again.
posted by Another Chance to Get It Right at
12:57 AM
1 Comments:
I think about how I used to love this feeling, thrive off it. The slight tremble in the hand that held the coffee or a spoon of cereal. I would feel, all day, no matter what, that I was going to throw up from the exhaustion. I anticipated the inevitable collapse, but it would always come days after I imagined it would.
By the end of freshman year, I could go a full day on only three hours sleep. Later, in my sophomore and junior years, I--and my mania--had whittled the time down to fifteen minutes. When I was manic, I could go a week getting somewhere between .25 and 3 hours of sleep a night. The hours of my day were expanded, had oozed and seeped until I considered 3 AM a part of my day, as valid a time as noon or 6 PM.
I'm doing 30 hour shifts now. And slipping into these kinds of states. I'm scared. After the last one, I couldn't sleep, just stayed up all night laughing. I did sort of miss it though.
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