I have been literally restless in the past few weeks.
This isn't just your ordinary nightmare. It almost feels like a kind of stress stretched out endlessly without you knowing its plasticity. The brink of its length reaching out the horizon.
I don't know if I should call this an illness or something, but the restlessness is real. Trying to sleep healthily is hard. I am used to staying up until late at night, and then go to sleep when it's almost dawn, or maybe if I'm lucky enough, I can doze off by one a.m. I realized that this needed to change, so I moved to a new place, get myself a roommate with normal human schedule, hoping I could start clean.
The first month or so, this plan worked. I could manage to sleep by one a.m at the very late nights, wake up before nine (to me this is a big achievement). I didn't notice when this plan started to fail. The last thing I know I'm right now sitting in front of my laptop at five a.m, writing in hope to find some light among the strings of narration. I just got home last night, arriving at almost 11 p,m, and hoping to get an early good night's sleep due to the exhaustion. Hopefully I could wake up early and start fresh again.
I did wake up early. Like, two hours after I slept. My body decided to wake up two hours after I slept after a long day of travel, for what reason I have absolutely no darn idea. I supposed I wasn't tired enough? Okay, so I decided to browse 9gag in hope to find my sleepiness. I did, two hours later. And when I slept, I woke up the second time after experiencing what people might call sleep paralysis. You know, when you dream of something and then you can't move and you're on the brink between sleep and wakefulness. I don't know the exact, accurate term, but that's what I experienced.
It's not my first time, but still it's an unpleasant experience for a lazy overthinker like me, because it messes with both my mind and my body. I go through this a lot, and I notice a pattern that this happens every time I overwork myself. The first ones are the hardest. You just think you're haunted, cursed or something, and superstitious thinking get through you as you wake up sweating like crazy, scared of your surrounding. But after six or seven times, you just wake up feeling frustrated and can't help but being all "goddammit not this again I need my sleep". This time I wake up with ringing ears. My head was pounding, my throat was dry and my legs are sore all over. Was I that tired, though? Why can't I get a good night sleep lately? I don't even drink coffee in the past week.
Everything is sore all over. I want to sleep but I have a feeling that I can't even if I try. It's almost a certainty to my pattern that if it happens once in a night, it won't happen again in the same night, but it still doesn't reassure me at the very least. At this point I'm too frustrated and exhausted to even try to sleep. Mentally and physically. Because, you know, when this happens, you can't sleep. Thus, you have more time to stay awake and maybe do something productive, right? NOPE. At this point, you are too exhausted to do anything remotely productive. That, is if you're like me. If you're not, I'm glad for you, I really am. I hope we can somehow talk about this and you can share your secret to being productive at night. But then I wonder what makes you read this far, because if you're what I think you are, you would be doing something better right? Now I digress.
So here I am, sitting in the dark of the unlit room at 5.30 a.m, with the only light came from window which curtains are slightly ajar, and glow-in-the-dark star stickers up on the ceiling. I drink some water while contemplating what the hell is wrong with me and the plausible cause for my endless restlessness. My roommate was half-awake and asked me what I was doing. I didn't answer. I was too busy considering the miserable state of my mind and body alike. She went back to sleep. I thought to myself, must be nice to be able not to overthink things. Must be nice not being me, having a sleep paralysis episode for like ten minutes and then spend the next couple of hours thinking about it.
I tend to think a lot when I'm not doing anything. Mostly they are just selfish, insecure thoughts of myself, that I dare not tell anyone else. I also think about my school tasks, though. I think about the tasks I need to do today and the regret I bear when I realize how stupid of me not starting doing them earlier. Short-minded? Maybe, but who guarantees I'd still live tomorrow?
Sincerely,
Your messed-up Taruna.
