An interesting thing just happened while I was urinating.
I was thinking in general about my poor sleep habits and how common wisdom insists that if I want to sleep better, I need to knock it off with the napping.
And the thought suddenly popped into my head, clear as day : “I can’t close that door. ”
What do I mean by that?
What I meant was that I can’t forswear napping as that would close the door on a vital coping mechanism. When things start to feel like it’s all too much, I can nap.
It’s my primary emergency escape mechanism. And as such, it runs pretty deep.
For instance, one of the main reasons I have had a problem with being away from home either too long or too far or both is that when I am out in the world, I can’t just retreat into sleep whenever I feel the need.
And that makes me feel vulnerable and insecure and makes me wish I was home.
Luckily, this is not the universal phenomenon like it used to be. A lot depend on where I am. If it’s Denny’s or the Community Care Clinic where I get my Wound Care, I will be quite relaxed in these familiar environments and therefore the need to run and hide in the land of Nod will not be strong.
Put me someplace new and it’s a different story.
It’s so easy to forget how mentally ill you are when you never do anything to piss your mental illness off.
It’s not worth it, though.
So to drag myself by the ankles back to the point. I can’t imagine totally denying myself the exit route of sleep. The very idea sounds awful to me, like some kind of “enhanced interrogation” thing they’d use to make me break.
It would work, too. “No, Mister Bertrand! No nap until you confess!”
“You realize duress makes a confession worthless, right? Forcing someone to say what you want them to say then pretending that’s the same as a real confession is like recalibrating your scale and thinking that means you lost weight, right? “
In response, they show me the very comfy and quiet bedroom with freshly laundered linen sheets on the bed and the latest in comfort spring technology.
“Oh god…. OK, the launch codes are…. ”
What can I say. I’m not made of stone. And neither is that bed! Wowsers.
I’m not sure what I would do if I ever had to work anything like a 9-5 job, with meetings and offices and such.
Even if it was my dream job of working in the writer’s room of a TV show. there would still be a part of me that wanted my safety blanket of…. an actual blanket.
I choose not to think about that too hard.
So I can’t see myself giving up naps any time soon. But it need not be that extreme. I could start by just delaying my naps a little bit.
Wait ten minutes before giving in. That kind of thing.
Once I do that and the world fails to cave in around me, maybe I will try for more.
But not right now. I am far too sleepy Damned sunset.
More after the break.
Out of time
Timne and I have not been getting along too wel lately.
The temporal dislocation moments, where I literally have no idea what time it is, are becoming far too frequent.
They jar my sense of reality and make me worry about my brain.
Take right now. I just woke up to find that it was frigging 11:15 pm anhd so I ony have 45 minutes to pump out 445 words.
I know I can do it but the time pressure is not appreciated.
And tthe thing is, I don’t remember when I lay down for a nap. No idea when that happened. So I don’t even know how long I slept;
I feel like time itself is playing tricks on me;.; How in the hell did I get here? Why am I typing away at this late hour instead of my usual 8 pm or soi? Where did this frigging headache come from? How come I’m so damned full of questions?!?
This frigging sucks. I want what little regularity I have been able to maintain in my life back. Meals at 8 am. 3 pm, and 8 pm. Sleep safely bound in between.
Oh right. The worst part is not the time pressure but the fact that I slept through supper. I am going to have to miss an entire meal because of this bizarre interlude and that’s something that should never, ever happen.
But what choice do I have? I can’t eat a full meal this close to my midnight snack with Joe and Julian. If I did, I would ruin my appetite for the snack and I would end up missing THAT meal instead.
I feel like I am in some bit of existentialist film that violates the rules of narrative structure in order to emphasize the bleak fate of those left behind by life.
Actually, that could be pretty good. Might make me feel better about my sad fate if I could it into something dramatic and dark.
I will add it to all the other great ideas I think up., give a pat on the head and tell them they’re good ideas, then file away forever and forget.
If I had people working for me who could handle the execution of my brilliant thoughts and I only had to supervise and manage, boy could I get shit done.
I am currently munching on some Bacon Dipper crackers and part of an apple in order to get at least a tiny bit of food into me before midnight.
I am pondering adding a sandwich to my usual midnight snacking in order to compensate for the missing meal.
It’s not much of a solution but it’s all I got. I hate having my threadbare routine violated like this and I very much resent being in this pickle.
But at least I won’t run out of time. I’m done and it only took 26 minutes.
Guess I am getting something out of all this typing after all.
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.