I have netted about 12 hours of sleep in the last three days, but I feel like Hercules, digging his way out of the piles of shit stored up in the Aegean stables. I wanted to write something nice tonight, because of this weather–
The night descended, wet and shiny and sullen. March was still prancing around, shaking its mane and roaring every now and then, to remind us that spring was not quite here yet. Hiccups of snow fell from sunny skies every now and then, just to keep things from getting too boring.
I wrote that last night, and then got disgusted and shut my computer off. I’ve had my no-fucks face on all day, but surprisingly, I feel like I’m a nicer person when I’m sleep-deprived and glazy-eyed. Maybe because I’m trying a little harder to not go on a horrific rampage, but also because being tired enough to fall asleep at any given moment is equivalent to being drunk. (One of my professors called me sleep-drunk and told me I shouldn’t operate motor vehicles. Apparently, it was that obvious. Well, good.) I, at least, lose some inhibitions when super tired. My tolerance for horsepucky (credit for that goes to one of my friends who keeps churning out all these unusual, funny words that I’ve never heard before) goes way down. I don’t try as hard to be anything or anyone, because I’m focusing mostly on funneling as much coffee into my face as possible, and also not tripping over myself. (I got stuck in a door today and sloshed coffee all down my poetry application for upper-level workshops. Oops.) A few friends and I had a 137 comment thread on Facebook (I’m sorry everyone who got sucked into seeing that) last night–I don’t think any of us have had much sleep this week. It’s been a week of exhaustion and straight up willpower. A lot of coffee too, but that’s nothing new. And sandwiched between all the stress and papers to write and duties to the larger world, I’ve had fragments of thought too, things I save for rainy-days when I can settle down in a window seat with a cup of tea and my grandmother’s oversized sweater.
I banged out a creative non-fiction piece in a day and had anxiety dreams last night. I have a tendency to overthink things. I forget that people are often a lot less complicated than I think they are. I’ve been thinking a lot about coincidence lately. How people meet. How small encounters can change your life. How sometimes prayer is answered in the most backhanded ways. Also about safe, beautiful, untouchable boys, and how I feel about that. I rarely manage to slow my brain down enough for me to understand. I think about roads not taken and versions of me that I might have been, but now will never be. I think a lot about the constant striving to be a better person, to question the world more intensely, to love more, to get out there and really feel. To give more of myself away than I take from others. I think about what it means to be a good person and how some of the best people I know constantly tell me what terrible people they are. Humility, too, I struggle with. It’s easy for me to get wrapped up in my pride, tangled up like Christmas lights not properly put away. There’s been things I’ve had to agree to disagree with my mother on lately. The gay rights issue. Birth control. When I complain about intolerant people, she reminds me that we live in a country of free speech and I have no more right to take that away from them, than I have the right to express my beliefs. You say you’re so open-minded, she tells me, well then. Act like it. It colors our human experience. I think a lot about what it is to fall in love and how maybe you never really know what it is til you’re there. (I’ve seen a lot of engagements on Facebook lately–I’m reaching that age where the wedding invitations will be rolling in soon.) A friend recently told me I had to stop being so stubborn and I said I wasn’t. I’m a pragmatist, I said. I don’t believe these sorts of things happen to people like me. I’ll see it when I believe it. But I think of my other friend, who found the girl she wants to spend the rest of her life with, and I will dance at her wedding with wings on my feet, and it’s people like them who keep me wishing on dark night skies and the first flowers of spring. I think if you find someone you want to spend the rest of your life with, whether or not they are male or female, then my God, you’ve found something most people spend their lives searching for. I don’t see the problem.
But enough deep thoughts. I’m off to go cuddle with my bed (finally) and perhaps actually sleep for at least one night this week. But just some thoughts for the universe at large.
xx
The Wanderer 