Every Thought That Kept Me Awake Last Night
Like a blooper reel of my life that I couldn’t stop watching
Some nights, the day fades away quietly and so timely that I barely remember the whole event. That has gotten rarer over the years.
Most nights, it takes more coaxing and priming to get my brain and body to align just right to where sleep is possible. If I’m being honest, it can take a couple hours on average to get to sleep.
Last night, though, sleep never came.
I was awake at 11pm even though I found my most comfortable position under my gravity blanket.
I was awake at midnight even though I made sure the air conditioner was on and the room was dark and quiet.
I was awake at 2am even though I stopped drinking water at 7pm so no bathroom break was needed.
This went on all night. It went on until… well… let’s say the last time I looked at the clock, it said 4:12am.
I used to journal every night to let my brain offload whatever information and analyses it had been racking up all day. All the semi-useless information and biased evaluations that kept me occupied and curious to get to the next level of thought. I’m always wondering about things.
Perhaps part of me misses that nightly journal routine because last night, my brain journaled all over my bed.
It started with my pajamas. I forgot to order new ones during the day, and I was thinking about the kind I wanted and why I wanted them. That thought led me to think about why I forgot to order them.
Before long, I was wondering what other things I forgot to do and why I forgot to do them.
Brain, meet rabbit hole.
There I was, super comfortable, very tired, in a cold dark room, reviewing my entire life with the meticulous precision of a surgeon mixed with the haphazard focus of a goldfish.
Career goals, business ideas, past boyfriends, past kitchen appliances in past apartments, seasonally appropriate shoes, and, for good measure, the argument for low-impact strength training.
If it has ever been a part of my life, it was making an appearance in the blooper reel last night.
Because that’s truly what it felt like, a blooper reel where you get to see the hilarious goof but not the whole scene where they say everything right and ride off into the sunset.
And, like a good blooper reel, you can’t turn it off.
Some nights are like that though. One thought after the next without any rhyme or reason. Sleep eventually takes over, and I wake up feeling no less anxious about a new day than I did the night before.
I’d like to say that I’m making a conscious effort to get back to journaling every night. Instead, I’m going to make sure I remember to order those new pajamas and see what happens.
