Bedtime is the perfect time to say goodbye to one day and reenergize for the next. It’s also the time one usually recalls, relives and recoils from the following thoughts again and again and again…
“Why Didn’t I Do More With My Day/Week/Life?”
It’s a common problem. Your head hits the pillow but your mind still reels with such reflections on personal progress as “At my age I shouldn’t be in a career that involves fixins. Or car washing. I mean seriously, what the hell kind of theme restaurant is that anyway?” Soon your questioning every decision you’ve ever made until you’re cursing out your three-year-old self for playing with Mega Bloks instead of Legos, since clearly that’s why you’re not a rock star/heart surgeon today.
”How Could I Have Only $18 In Savings, Most Of That In Nickels?”
Everybody loses sleep over money, especially in this economy. You lie in bed, looking around your apartment thinking, “Did I really need to buy all these clothes? After all, I can only wear four shirts at once before they start getting tight.” “Did I really need to buy a 3-D TV when I still have my old Viewmaster?” “Did I really need to buy a new computer when my old one still let me play with MacPaint?” And so you promise yourself to be far more carefully with your money only to wake up the next day to find Netflix changed their rates yet again and completely bankrupted you.
“I Hope That Mole/Lump/Protruding Horn Isn’t Serious.”
During the day when our lives are hectic we can easily ignore that odd rash, that curious bump, that growth that sort of looks like you if you had never been born but instead were ingested by your twin in utero. But at night when all is quiet you find yourself staring into the darkness thinking, “What if it gets worse? How can I afford medical help without health insurance? Why won’t this growth stop calling itself ‘Bobby’ and saying I’m the reason he never met our mother?”
“Why Didn’t I Kiss Him/Her/Them?”
Nothing keeps us more awake than regret. Regret not simply for what we did but for what we failed to do. Those moments when we knew they liked us, we knew that were flirting with us, we knew we had finally made a connection but because of fear of rejection or crippling self-doubt we chose not to act and so once more we walked home alone, our lonely footsteps resounding in a our head like the march of the doomed, until we crawl into bed and spend the rest of the night humping the hell out of our pillow.
“Why Am I Going To Bed At 10pm On A Friday (Not Counting That Two-Hour Nap I Took Starting At 8 pm)?”
How often have you lied in bed worrying that everyone else is leading a far more exciting life than you are? A life in which others use their DVRS to watch all the shows they missed due to countless adventures, not to rewatch the “Ancient Aliens” marathon you already caught live last night with your cats. A life in which their all their tweets aren’t updates about what does and does not go with raman noodles or tears. A life in which you’re not invited to your roommate’s party in your own apartment because he says he didn’t know where to send your invitation.
“What If The Apes Do Learn Weaponry And Parliamentary Procedure?”
Eventually if you stay up long enough worrying logic goes out the window and you begin to wonder such things as “Do pets have nightmares and are their owners cast as the villains?” “Is the difference between an orc and a troll religious observance?” “Did the makers of orange ade ever envision a day when they would force out orange juice?” And, of course, “If apes took over the planet would they have their own version of ‘Sesame Street’ starring nothing but sock monkeys?”
What do you think of when you fall asleep? Let me know in the comments!
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