Aftershocks
I was in a rare mood this afternoon.
There was really no reason for me to be feeling so foul, and it wasn't like I'd built up to it gradually over the course of the day. Things had actually gone pretty well aside from a miscommunication here and there, and I was generally in a pretty good mood.
It just hit me.
I suddenly felt like being violent, or crying, or something in-between.
Those who have been close to me for a while know that this isn't the normal state of things. I am rarely if ever genuinely upset or angry about anything, especially to the point where emotions outweigh my rational thought. It's just not my style.
Nevertheless, I found myself in that state around 5:15 today, and I was quickly out the door and walking down 35th street feeling very much like the festering, brooding teenager I once was.
I knew this feeling, this tension in of a sob stuck in my chest and the comic-book-like imaginary flashes of destroying things around me with my bare hands playing through my mind. This was familiar. This was sleepdep.
I've never been a true insomniac, but sleep-deprivation is an old friend of mine that comes to visit every now and then. Sleepdep is slippery little menace that can sneak up on you without you even seeing it coming. If your body needs 8 hours a night, and you're consistently giving it 4, that's going to bite you in the ass pretty fast, but even messing with the littlest details of the way you sleep can be enough to stop you from getting the R.E.M. you need to stay sane.
Don't believe me? Try this simple experiment sometime (preferably when there's no one you like around, as you may offend, or, you know, kill them). Sleep in your clothes, on top of your covers for 1 week. That small change lets you technically sleep, but keeps you awake enough to deprive you of the actual delta level rest you need. Soon enough, you'll be acting like you've been up 2 days straight even though you got sleep a few hours ago. Your nerves become frayed, your emotions hit peaks and valleys way out of your normal range, and your perception of the world changes. Suddenly, a quiet room becomes a dissonant cacophony of whirring computer fans and high pitched TV whine. The subway becomes a nausea inducing roller coaster. People walking the street go from smiling obstacles to grimacing oafs who can't get out of your way.
What puzzled me as I stormed down 35th street was that I'd been sleeping more than enough, but this feeling was unmistakable. I thought back to the previous night, trying to isolate what was keeping me from truly sleeping, and the images came flooding in - thousands of them in a millisecond. My feet faltered and I stopped to breathe the warm, damp air.
I'd dreamed last night.
Not only had I dreamed, I'd had some seriously messed up and intense dreams. So much so that I remembered them, and remembered popping in and out of sleep because of their vividness, only to be sucked straight back into them despite my best efforts to move around and come awake enough to switch dreams.
As I pieced together that night's images, I realized that the night before had been even worse, and the nightmare from that night took my breath away as I recalled making Sophie's choice, yet tragically saving neither person in the dream, only to be told in the depths of my guilt and misery by a good friend that what I'd done, the mistake I'd made was unforgivable. I remembered wailing away in the dream and wondered if I'd made noise in my sleep then, as I sometimes do when being vocal in my dreams.
I looked up at the grey sky above 35th street and breathed again.
Okay.
This was understandable. I was just human. These were just little aftershocks, coming out in ways I hadn't yet let happen while awake. This was natural, allowable.
My feet carried me to the subway, and I crumpled into a seat at pulled out my Gameboy, determined to not have to sit for the next 45 minutes brooding and bored.
I sensed, more than saw, a small... presence... find its way over to me and sit at my left.
"Is that an SP? What'cha playing?" I heard the little voice say.
The boy, who was the size of a seven year old with a face that scarcely looked 4, leaned right into me, peering over my shoulder at my game.
"Is that hard?" he continued, not waiting for me to answer his earlier questions, having answered them himself already.
"Not really" I said, and smiled to him, returning to playing my game while he happily watched.
"I don't really like Pokemon, I played it at my friends house, but I didn't get very far, I like Mario though."
I smiled to myself, partly embarrassed that the entire train now knew that I was indeed enjoying a rousing game of Pokemon: Fire Red, and partly amused at how quickly and utterly this little kid had pulled me out of my funk.
"Jimmy, let him play his own game." his mother said from across the train somewhere.
I leaned back, smiling, and half-whispered conspiratorially to Jimmy "I like Mario too... but I beat it already"
"Ohhhh. I haven't beaten it yet, I've only gotten about halfway through cause I don't have my own Gameboy I just play it at my friends house, but you know what game I did beat, I beat turtles..."
I smiled again at Jimmy, as I stood to give his mother the seat, now that the crowd had thinned and his sister had joined him as well. Jimmy never missed a beat, transitioning to tell his mom all about how he'd beat turtles because it was soooo easy. I'm sure she was thrilled.
The good feeling stayed, and I could feel my shoulders relax and my back release and straighten as I stood there clicking my game and listening to Jimmy prattle on. I imagined that I sounded quite a bit like him about 20 years ago, going on about Mario and Turtles. There was some comfort in the cyclical way these great franchises had been recycled.
Jimmy and his family got off at Astoria Boulevard, and I smiled at the serendipity of the timing. I've ridden the subway thousands of times, and maybe 3 people have ever just started talking to me like that. Jimmy will never know it, but that little reminder of reality, his sharing his gleeful perspective; that was exactly what I needed today.
