Art of Growing Old

It’s interesting to construct the pieces of time that I had once lost into my story. I’m finding myself between the cracks.

There are a number of people who experience the awful sensation of not being able to sleep - about 11.76% of Americans do actually (according to statistics found on various pages throughout the internet). There are number of types of this disease and I’m quite sure that plenty of people have endured much greater hardships than I have. Nevertheless, this story is about me and this section is about my battle with that demon.

Perhaps defeat wasn’t the right term - I believe you have to actually fight in order to face defeat. I did nothing of the sort. In fact, for one month, I had completely given up. However, I was slowly beginning to realize how permanent my situation was becoming. One evening everything came together in my mind and I realized that this wasn’t a temporary adventure. This was my life, my career, and everything that I have been longing for. The burning desire to fight had risen inside of me.

tomorrow I’m going nuclear.

OK, so it wasn’t exactly an overnight process. Instead, it took me several days to fully understand what it was that I was planning on doing. I knew that I was unhappy, but I had no idea what I was looking for. Was it a different department? Was it a different company? These were questions that had to be answered.

I tossed and turned for an eternity. Little did I know that I had spent merely five minutes fighting a battle that would take me weeks to resolve…it was the first of many nights that I would stare at the ceiling and attempt to answer the questions that were lingering in my mind. The days were drifting by and I was losing myself to the loneliness of a new city. I spent countless hours reading, watching episodes of Scrubs, and sitting in coffee shops wishing only to meet someone new. It was a constant struggle to understand what was happening to me and what it all meant.

One of the things I find the most interesting is that often times when we are “searching for ourselves” we aren’t ready for the realizations that we are about to face. I’d venture to say that half the time, the results of are journey are there all along – we just don’t really know how to see them.

Insomnia affects your world in ways that you’re never truly prepared for. Sometimes you’re lucky enough to unleash your subconscious into the world and accomplish great things. Other times, you’re introduced to the side of yourself with no energy, no motivation, and absolutely no talent for anything. I was a member of this so-called unlucky few.

It’s difficult to explain what happened after this without sounding too dramatic. It was a series of let downs that all started with the same basic premise: there was hope within the company. You see, there is always “hope” within the company, this is true. However, this “hope” that they speak is so terribly far away that I don’t feel it’s even worth mentioning.

Every day was a new day to repeat my old mistakes. I had no idea what they were, of course. From my perspective, I was stuck in an endless loop and I had no idea how to get out of it. I was simply waiting for someone to break me from my habit. Of course, that rarely happens when we “want” it to, now does it?

I was irritated, impatient, frustrated, and empty. We all fall into the cycle of our mundane routines but this felt different. I began pushing, wiggling, squirming my way through any and every crack in the system to simply get a taste of fresh air. What’s interesting is that these actions were almost anticipated. No matter where I ended up, I was met with the stale taste of recycled air.

My so-called improvements were not moving anywhere and I was fully aware of this by now. I was blocked from every angle. Special favors were no longer an option and I received the final word on my numerous transfer requests: we’ll talk about it again in a couple of years. Let’s focus on bringing value to this department in the here and now.

I could feel myself starting to understand the plans for keeping me locked and I was scared. I was scared of what it meant.

For the first time in my life, I didn’t have a plan for any second of my immediate future.