“These four walls…they whisper to me. They know a secret I knew they would not keep…Just me and these four walls again”
Who knew some Miley Cyrus lyrics would ever epitomize how I feel? The strangest feeling washed over me last night (technically this morning). It was 3am and I couldn’t sleep…after having laid in bed for an hour staring at the shadows on the wall I finally flipped my lamp on and stared at the ceiling for a bit…I was trying to think of something to occupy my mind but everything I usually do when I’m bored and restless…reading, writing, YouTube surfing, doing homework…none of them seemed sufficient occupations. I was basically lying in bed, listening to Texas Rain (by Sleeperstar, they were at AU once) on repeat, and staring at the ceiling. I once read that if you can’t sleep, you should get out of bed and walk around because you should only associate your bed with sleep, not restlessness…so I sat up but realized I had nowhere to go. It’s an odd feeling, being trapped…except not really. I had access to the outside world. I could have gotten online. Called home (it was only 10pm there). And yet I really didn’t want to do anything. I was bored, and knew of ways to be un-bored, but still I remained. The only thing I did want to do, was take a walk down to the lake over in western campus. For some reason I imagined the moon reflecting off the water and really wanted to see it…but I knew the moon is never visible at night here and it was cold and I didn’t want to seem like a creep, out on this poorly-lit campus at 3am (and possibly encounter drunk people…it was Saturday night, after all).
Eventually, after 40 minutes (or 8 plays of Texas Rain) I decided to look at a Christmas catalogue I’d picked up from one of the shops in town. I was cutting out words to paste into my journal…and I’m talking meticulously cut…got all the way done and realized…I had no glue to paste them in. FAIL.
I can’t remember what eventually put me to sleep…but I slept through the whole night. Another bizarre thing…sometimes when I know I have to get up early (ie: when we travel early in the morning and I have to be up at 6 or 7) I take melatonin to make m drowsy so I’ll get to sleep earlier and faster…but this last week I’ve been taking it and waking up halfway through the night, wide awake. Like it wears off and I’m not tired anymore. Bizarre. It usually works. I think I’m just all off balance right now! I’m stressed (about school, getting a job when I get back, life in general) and getting irritated and sad that I’m leaving but excited to get home…I don’t think a person can easily reconcile conflicting feelings for two different things at the same time. And this website I’m working on for class due in 2 weeks…just punch me in the face.