A Vacant Space of Waking

For about a week now, I haven’t been sleeping well. So far, I’ve been dealing with this by finding ways to keep busy until about 2:00am, taking an anti-nausea pill to settle my churning stomach and make me drowsy, then turning on the TV to drown out my thoughts until I fall asleep to late-night reruns. For those of you not so good at math or not aware of my wake-up time, this has had me getting about four hours of sleep a night, generally speaking.

I was really hoping to change that this weekend, and did, to a certain extent. I was able to sleep a bit later in the mornings, but still was having the problem of not being able to just shut off my mind and let myself sleep. Then yesterday, a pair of good friends took me out to a lindy event on Santana Row, in the hopes of breaking me from the funk in which I’ve been sort of mindlessly existing for a while now. I was thankful for the opportunity to get out for a while, but I figured I would mostly be too depressed to dance.

I forgot, however, that dance negates depression.

Turns out I actually had a really good time. I danced quite a bit, both with my friends and with new faces I met at the event. We also had a good time watching many small children as they danced along, as well (see the example to the right). By the end of the afternoon, I was worn out from the time in the sun and all the activity. I thought, “Great – maybe I’ll finally be able to sleep tonight!”

So, that night, as I prepared for bed, I bravely decided to face the darkness sans anti-nausea meds and sans TV. After all – I can’t rely on those forever, right? In exchange for my bravery, I was rewarded with two hours of tossing and turning before finally managing to grab about three hours of sleep.

I think for tonight, I stick with what works.