One of my favorite songs, for reasons I can rarely understand, is “Be Human”. It’s a little tune from the soundtrack of Ghost in the Shell that often drifts to mind whenever I find myself worrying too much about whatever may be. I guess it’s strange that, from time to time, I relate better to the mechanical people that the song represents. But one section of the song, more than any other, sticks with me almost constantly.
I analyze and I verify and I quantify enough
100 percentile no errors no miss
I synchronize and I specialize and I classify so much
Don’t worry ’bout dreaming because I don’t sleep —
It’s the part that always springs to my mind first, which is good, because it’s the first part of the song. But I’ve always felt it represents me and my near lifelong battle with insomnia. Sometimes I wish I could shut it off, just, turn it off and make it stop. I try to sleep and I end up face down in a pillow for over an hour while worrying about things that shouldn’t be a problem. I know everyone has problems sleeping when they worry, but not as many people keep the hours I do…
I can’t help it, I just can’t sleep.
If all things fail in my life, I know I have one job above all others which I was practically born to do: night shift security. I’m big (sometimes, little too big), I’m pretty observant and, most importantly, I’ve been known to have periods of insomnia that have kept me wide awake for nearly 48 hours at a time. I just can’t shut my brain off as it keeps screaming at me.
Being naturally a nocturnal creature myself, I often sleep when the sun rises and wake around noon. Most people my age who say something like that are some sort of drunken party animal, but as I’ve mentioned before, sadly, I’m straight edged and haven’t touched alcohol in several years and have never been drunk. No, I’m just incapable of holding the same hours of others and still functioning correctly. But it becomes all the harder when you realize that this is before the insomnia kicks in.
Suddenly, thanks to extreme sleep deprivation, sleeping to noon potentially becomes sleeping to 2 or 3 in the afternoon. Once, when my ability to communicate with the outside world was cut off for a period of time (the virus known as Windows), I found myself sleeping all the way from sunrise to sunset (winter though, so not THAT impressive) after something to the tune of 54 hours without sleep.
This could be why my first real attempt at a short story involved a vampire hunter and why I’ve always secretly wanted to move to a city that has a vibrant nightlife readily accessible through a 24/7 public transit system.
However, due to recent events, I need to start getting back to sleep at “normal” hours. I have to take care of some kids for a few months and make sure they have a stable life despite the fact their mother will be in Afghanistan and their father will be…only god knows where. I guess I’m in a vicious circle: worries preventing sleep, lack of sleep creating more worries.
Truthfully…I don’t know if I can do it again. I’m terrified of having to do it again, especially now that all of the people who helped me last time have died. I don’t know if I’m strong enough for it. It’s hard enough waking up while the sun is still up, having to do it with a couple screaming toddlers is going to be really rough. But my family needs me to do it and I can’t tell them that I’m not feeling up to it. My sister’s going off to war and she needs someone to take care of her kids for her.
But at least venting it somewhere has made me feel tired again. I’ll go back to bed now, put my head down and hope for the best. Funny enough, despite my complaining, I’m still going to do it. I can’t tell them that they’re on their own in a situation like that, not without surrendering my rights to call myself human…
Sweet dreams, see you at noon.
