smallchou.com/blog

when i was in eighth grade, i couldn’t sleep. i went through a period of about six months where i (literally) could not, for the life of me, fall asleep. every night i would roll around anxiously waiting for The Anvil of Sleep to drop on my head. the wait would ultimately culminate in a bizarre panic over my insomnia, which would (of course) keep me awake.my brother thought i was a little bit crazy. he eventually took to telling me to get the hell out of his room (where i would sit late at night complaining about my lack of sleep while he plugged away at high school homework). eventually my mom took me to the doctor, where it was determined that i needed to ‘calm the hell down and get some damned sleep’. i’m paraphrasing, of course.

interestingly enough, the doctor made some assumption that i was depressed, probably due to the enormous bags under my eyes and how insanely tired i was (hey, you try not sleeping for a week). apparently, instead of jotting down “can’t fall asleep,” he wrote “mild depression,” meaning that even today when i go to any doctor, he/she asks me if i feel depressed these days. instead of going into a long tirade like: “no, i don’t feel depressed. and i never did feel depressed. i just couldn’t friggin fall asleep!” which would probably make him jot ‘extreme violent tendencies to accompany his depression,’ i just politely say “no, i’m feeling great these days.” it’s much easier that way.

the funny thing was, of course, that i was the furthest thing from depressed in eighth grade. i had blossomed into a reasonably good athlete while being honestly disappointed by any score less than 100 on tests. and (strange for an eighth grade boy) i wasn’t uncomfortable about my laughable ineptitude around girls. no, depressed was not the term for me, nor was it the reason for my lack of sleep. if anything, i was mentally excited. TOO excited to get to sleep, i think. eventually i got over my insomnia by ‘calming the hell down’, and since then i’ve slept like a log.

i bring this up because last night was the first time i’ve been completely unable to sleep because of excitement since eighth grade. maybe it’s my upcoming two-week july trip to chicago and las vegas (though i’m not sure how i’ll keep up my workouts while i’m there there. pseudostoops, is there a gym in your building?). or maybe it’s my planned september trip to the Lost island. or maybe it’s yesterday’s realization that i’m 24 and can recount only five *really* notable things from the past two years since i went to europe. whatever it is, i’m feeling kind of excited. bring it.

Blogged with Flock