1. ...asleepI started writing this post sometime around 2:00 in the morning on Monday/Tuesday. If you know me well, you know that my usual haunting grounds don't often include 2:00 in the morning, especially on a work night when I have to get up by 6:30. As a matter of fact, I had gone to bed really early that night. I came down with a pretty bad cold sometime over the weekend, and didn't get much sleep in Sunday night, and spent most of Monday feeling crummy and wanting nothing more than to lie down.
But the moment I was finally able to crawl into bed, my body decided I didn't actually want to go to sleep. And about 3 hours later I finally conceded that, no, sleep was overrated, and my body was right - I didn't want to sleep. For the record, I didn't really believe this. But I was losing the argument and some battles are just not worth fighting. I got up and had some toast and milk (which sounded like the kind of thing that ought to make one feel warm and sleepy, but it didn't work) and settled down on the couch with my pillow and my duvet, and watched an episode of My So-Called Life, and then watched another episode of My So-Called Life (holy cow, that show transports me straight back to high school!), and then ran out of episodes on the DVD and decided to blog about insomnia.
Maybe it was all the effort of trying to think of interesting things about insomnia to write about (ideas: none), but that was what finally did it. I got to some brilliant line in my blog post like, "I can't actually think of anything interesting to say," and realized that I was on the verge of winning the battle, or at least winning the concession of half a night's sleep. I didn't bother going back to my room, but put aside my computer and curled up there on the couch.
2. ...for it, not
It was as I drifted off to sleep that I finally caught my vision of the blog entry. Nasty ploy by my body to try to trick me out of another one of those four remaining hours of sleep. I'm proud of myself for being able to resist the lure of a well-composed blog, especially because in the light of the morning that little lightbulb that clicked on didn't seem quite as brilliant.
But what the heck. Here it is anyway (briefly). My family already knows this story, but I don't think any of my other readers do.
3. ...down
A couple weeks ago I went running in the dark. I was running on well-lit streets, but near the end of my run I happened to run under the shadow of a tree that happened to be hiding a speed bump. I had no way of noticing the speed bump until my foot collided with it instead of colliding with air like it usually does when I lift it off the ground. I went down. I skinned my right knee and both of my hands and my left shoulder, although only the knee was unprotected by fabric and therefore only the knee drew blood.
The next morning I didn't leave quite so early, although it was still kind of dark during the first part of my run. I was in a bad mood that morning (some mornings are just like that) and about a mile and a half out I thought, "What if I tripped and fell again? That would be awful! I think I would curl up in a ball in the middle of the sidewalk and cry." Not two minutes later my foot caught on a depression in the sidewalk and down I went. "Are you serious?!" I thought to some ambiguous "you." And then I wondered if that meant I had to follow through on the second half of my thought and curl up in a ball in the middle of the sidewalk and cry. I decided yes, but only for about three seconds. Then I got up and ran home as best I could with a skinned left knee to match my right, torn gloves, bleeding palms, bruised ribs, and a twisted shoulder.
Let me say here and now that in twelve years of running I have fallen maybe once. Maybe. I don't remember it, but it seems like something that could have happened. And I know with absolute certainty that the only reason I fell twice last week, instead of being able to leave it at once, was that I thought about it. If I had not had that thought, I would not have fallen.
And that's where my mind almost jerked me back out of my almost-sleep. I'd been thinking about blogging the running story when it happened, and thinking about blogging about insomnia when it happened, and all of a sudden as I drifted off to sleep I thought: They're the same story! Because that's how insomnia works, too. For awhile you're just not falling asleep, but the moment you become conscious of the fact that you're not falling asleep you're pretty much doomed. It's the thinking about it that does it.
There are all sorts of life/gospel connections that my tired mind wanted me to think about when I made this brilliant connection at 2:30 on Monday/Tuesday, but I'll spare you, or let you come up with them on your own. I think the story is good enough for now.
3 comments:
Ouch! Sounds painful! My remedy is to not run at all ;)
The mind really is a powerful thing. Try focusing in on a bump on a ski run and tell yourself that you WILL NOT hit it. You'll hit it every time.
Hope you sleep better tonight!
I've fallen a couple times during muddy cross-country races in high school. Several times, actually, now that I think about it. But only once during normal running, and that involved some ice. And yet just a couple days after you wrote this, I found myself coming back from a long run on a Saturday night in my poorly-lit neighborhood, and nearly biffed it. The road had no shoulder, I was temporarily blinded by a car's headlights, and I almost went into a large ditch. But apparently I shouldn't think too much about it, if my karma is likely to do the same to me that it did to you.
Post a Comment