Trouble Sleeping

Tuesday, February 19

My insomnia has been acting up badly lately. It starts off normally at night, I browse Tumblr, read for a bit... and then it starts. I just lay there and lay there and lay there, waiting to fall asleep, even if I'm exhausted. Nothing. My mind doesn't shut up, my eyes cannot stop searching and I can't focus on sleep or anything else. My mind just races and races until BLAM it's 6 in the morning and I have to wake up in three hours. That next day is always hell and even if I don't nap and I'm running on three hours, I can't seem to fall asleep the next night.

My mind chases so many thoughts at night. It's like my maze is a massive forest. I'm standing in the middle of a meadow in the center of the forest full of huge evergreen trees. The trees surround me as I stand there, feeling peaceful. Suddenly twelve deer appear and they al stare at me. They all take off running in all different directions in the trees and I just HAVE to catch all of them. That's what night feels like for me.


Lately my thoughts have had many different directions but the one that has really taken over is excessive thinking of the future. This has been a problem since... I'd say last July. I like what I'm going to school for, sure. I love my friends, I'm happy with there I live but lately I've grown increasingly anxious to grow up and move on. I will be 21 in pretty much an EXACT month and I want to start living and working toward my dreams.

I KNOW that I'm being smart and that dental assisting is great but I can't shake the feeling that I just want to study English. I'm tired of being practical. I'm tired of being patient. I want to study what I want to study. Not something I feel like I have to study.



  Good things come to those who wait. And I know that I will get there, I will be there in a year even but the waiting is killing me. When I should be studying for dental assisting, I research schools and English programs. I plan my future in London. I dream and I hope and I get so angry at people who keep talking to be about money and practicality and settling. SCREW YOUR SETTLING. It may have worked for you but it will not work for me. I know what settling looks like, and it's not me.

I'm not worried about money. I know my family will support me, even if they don't fully understand my artistic, unsettled mind. I'm not afraid to take loans out. After all, that's what the dental assisting is about. It's a great job I will love until I can surround myself solely with books and words, it's just hard to wait.

And I see all of my friends traveling and making travel plans and I feel like I am just... stuck. I want to get out. I want new people. I'm sick of how small this world is and I want a new place with new people and new places and sights and smells. I'm bored of running into people I'd rather forget and have people I love know people I wish didn't know me. I want to go to a new place. I cannot wait to get to Arizona in a month. I'm just afraid I won't be able to focus even more when I come back.

All in all, I know that good things come to those who wait and I will be able to go to the school I want very soon in all reality. I just feel stuck right now and it's keeping me awake at night. If any of you out there know any tricks to shutting a mind off, I would greatly appreciate them. Anything would help at this point and I will try anything. 

Keep on keeping on, beautiful people.



3 comments:

  1. You're going to be the best writer/studier/dreamer, etc. I think staying in the present is something I struggle with, actually. Just to be.

    But I also know, I'd let you clean my teeth any day of the week. And Arizona is going to love you. And the world is preparing for you and all the greatness you are. Utah is lucky.

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  2. Emma, I've had problems with insomnia, especially in high school and my freshman year. And then, BOOM, for some reason China made it so I didn't have multiple sleepless nights in a row. I've tried breathing exercises, singing songs over and over in my head, literally counting sheep, Ambien, Melatonin. NOT ALWAYS SUCCESSFUL.

    I think this is what has helped me, though: I try to lay down in bed around the same time every night, give or take an hour. And then I wake up every morning around the same time...even on weekends (killer, BUT. You know it's worth it). Eventually it will start to feel natural. A perk to this is now I don't always have to wake up to an alarm. WAKING UP NATURALLY IS THE BOMB.

    No computer or phone or eating an hour-ish or so before bed. Kinda tricky. But it really helps on the nights I follow this.

    Exercise and healthy foods. Word.

    The hard thing is getting your mind to shut up, even when you try EVERYTHING. Usually at night I think about my dreams in life or what worries me so I write those down before bed, tell myself that they can be addressed tomorrow and make sure I give myself time in the day (even if it's just 15 minutes or when I'm in the car) to actively ponder those things so they aren't put off until the time when I actually want my mind to shut up.

    Emma, you are gonna do amazing things and go to fantastic places, I just know it. It's in you. I love you and I hope that you can sleep!

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  3. You're not alone sister. The world has so many great things to offer! Yet here we are, stuck in a small place. However, my friend wrote a lovely post I think you should read. Maybe it'll make it worse, but hopefully not! http://brightredfingernails.blogspot.com/2013/02/on-who-you-really-are.html
    Even though your current circumstances aren't what you want right now, you are bigger than those things. You have great things yet to come, this is but a brief moment.

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Thank you for your words; they light a fire in my heart. You are lovely.