Way too tired. The week has been heavy and persistent. And my efforts at self-preservation have all but gone in vain. I have developed chair sores (like bed sores but invisible to the naked eye), my fingers twitch uncontrollably without the intervention of the brain and I look like an Al-Qaeda recruit who didn't read the fine print when signing the "How I will blow myself up in the most beautiful cities of the world" document. But the most adverse side-effect has been the loss of sleep. It's back. And it would give me nightmares, if it weren't for the fallacy of the situation.I have started dreading nights. They are slow and tiring. With a silence so pervading that sometimes I can hear my blood rushing and gurgling through my body, stopping at times only to pick up speed. Comfortable in its monotonicity. The body lies inert in foetul positions at various angles. The eyes, open. Staring at the little cracks and indentations on the walls. Drawing stories that no one wants to hear. The mind races on. Moving from friends to foes to love to regrets with a bull-headed recklessness. Searching desperately for the needle of sleep.
I have tried drinking. I have tried reading. I have tried the air-conditioner (at lower temperatures. at higher temperatures). I have even tried milk. They don't work. Not yet anyway. The mind feels dry and needs to look and absorb every detail much to heavy for me to handle. I don't know how to deal with it. I don't know whether it will go away. I don't know whether I should make my peace with it. Just lead a dual life of optimism and sleeplessness. On the road to becoming the hamming extra in a badly written script.
Maybe I can find something to do at night. Like brush up on my Scrabble skills. Or practice exorcism to get all the women I have loved out of my core. Try Origami. Or have a conversation with the moths that keep dropping in. Maybe seek out the shy lizard that lives behind my television set and thank him for keeping the cockroaches at bay. I could also clean out my Rotrings and start drawing cartoons again.
I need to make a list.
The image is a page from the graphic novel The Three Paradoxes by an upcoming and very, very talented cartoonist/illustrator/author called Paul Hornschemeier. Read his interview here.
12 comments:
Welcome to world of Insomniacs, well certainly I can’t be of any help in this matter as I felt this is my description, a post written to describe my melancholy.
Hope you find the solution soon…
That sounds painfully familiar.
I have insomnia when I'm more stressed and nothing works for me, including pills. So, in time, I came to accept it, like you said. It doesn't work to make insomnia our enemy, it doesn't work to think we should be sleeping. Sometimes it works not sleeping because the next night you're bound to be sleepy. lol
I'm sorry, I hope it gets better.
I end up lurking at night, wandering around my place. Right now I'm sleeping, and haven't been lurking much. It comes and goes, but right now I feel lucky.
When I first had the morsel, she slept 10 hours a night. We even worried and would occasionally wake her up on purpose to make sure she was okay. But it was normal for her. Then suddenly she started not sleeping much. The doctor said that she was in a learning mode, was learning so much and her brain was too excited. That she couldn't wait to wake up and practice all the things she was learning.
:D tht description of actually hearing the blood gurgle inside to and fro the veins sounds like Vipasyana... Any expertise in tht form of meditation, by any chance?
Insomnia, isn't it the privilege of a fertile mind? i mean, imagine the kind of thoughts u can have, from dancing elephants to hiking in a forest to plotting a murder mystery to talking with lizards (in your case)... I have always had sleepless nights but never saw them as a problem. I wake up royally late when I sleep at dawn. and tht's too often.. Simple...
Origami sounds interesting, but u wont feel like folding paper into swans when u want sleep, believe me. :)
A list could be a good idea...think of all the things you can do at night which are more difficult to do during the day. Read difficult texts...if that doesn't put you to sleep, think of all you can learn from it.
Otherwise, I dread the day, not too far away now, when I'll have forced insomnia taking care of a newborn who has yet to learn the difference between day and night.
anonymous - i hope so too. but yes, i slept well for the last two days. also was hopelessly drunk.
devil mood - surprising at the high rate of insomnia of bloggers? is this what makes us write? for our sake, i hope it doesn't go forever.
gauri - fertile mind, yes. if both go hand in hand then i'd rather be infertile if only for 8 hours.
besides, the good ones at origami, dont really make swans :)
kimananda - just today i thought i will pick up a difficult text. also have all of last years movies to catch up on. and best of luck with the baby. the insomnia will be well worth it :)
Or you just start a fight club ;)
jus dropped in to say thnks for tht nice comment.. (though hope u didn't read the first and the last lines only given the post ws too long :D) and yes, they start off with swans, right? I ws too small when i tried tht.. but i ws a natural with scissors and paper, so mummy didn't bother much..
anonymous - a fight club? what do you think i am doing anyway?
gauri - ah. yes it was long. but was strangely entertaining. but it was the last line that held my attention after all the destruction in the first. of buildings and otherwise.
:) checked back in to see a response.. glad. read the other blog when u find the time and let me know wht u think too..
maybe you've heard this one before but i'll write it here anyway - what do you get when you cross an insomniac with an agnostic and a dyslexic? .....a guy who stays up all night wondering if there is a dog. :-)
gauri - i have i think. and i am very bad at haiku. and sushi.
smiling dolphin - lol. that is one of my favourite, favourite jokes simply because of its involving, complicated nature. thanks for dropping in.
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