Sleep

Before we go any further, I think you should all know that I am a bad sleeper. My mother says it in a concerned and worried manner to anyone who will listen - 'she has terrible trouble you know', and its true, i really really do. I go through phases where my brain simply won't shut up and let me sleep, where my body lies leaden and exhausted but my brain races from one infuriatingly pointless thought to the next and will not stop, gleefully rattling through the night like some kind of deranged poltergeist. I have learnt to accept it, but it always happens at the wrong time - now for example - after a hectic wonderful weekend of parents visiting and right before a 4 day trip to bristol and oxford. It is not that I am not tired - I am, itchy-scratchy-crabby-carby tired. Its just I can't sleep. I have developed strategies to combat this - counting latin verbs, yogic breathing, acceptance of my fate, but my body's capacity for self sabotage never ceases to amaze me.

I also cannot sleep if someone else is in the bed, particularly if they snore, move, speak, or are awake. I simply cannot. I refuse to sleep anywhere near one of my best friends, because she kicks, scrunches, slobbers and snores. The only person I will slumber soundly next to is my bestest friend in the whole wide world, because on top of all her other virtues, she is a silent and still sleeper.

All this insomnia is made worse by two things. Firstly, of course, I am awful without sleep. I hate myself, I hate everyone, I think everyone hates me. I talk to anyone and everyone about how I cannot sleep and tend to overdo the whole thing so that by the end of a conversation people throw nytol at me in a vain attempt to get me to shut up. Its embarassing and overdramatic but I cannot help myself. Sleep is a basic human need and instinct and I find it supremely unfair that my body simply does not want to get involved with something it so patently wants and needs. The second worse thing is that I am a sleep DIVA. Woe betide anyone who snores near me. I view it as a personal insult. HOW DARE YOU? I have bruised the aforementioned kicking-snoring-slobbering friend before in my violent rails against her nighttime habits. Of course, all this agression and attitude is actually just seething jealousy, the pent up frustration of sitting and staring at a bed-mate snoring away oblivious, ASLEEP when I so long to be. I still feel awful about other best friend's (sorry; continuous use of best friend - ill describe them all in my next post) visit to Paris, where her snoring annoyed me so much that I woke her up, told her off, and then went soundly to sleep, leaving her sitting, twitching, too scared to sleep for fear of 'waking the beast' (me) with a snore.

Its ugly. Its infuriating. Its one of my worst things. Everything goes out the window - health (hello unecessary and bloating croque madame at lunch, HI), sanity (emailing EVERYONE to make sure THEY ALL KNOW I AM RETURNING TO OXFORD NEXT WEEKEND, when they are all in the same friendship group and know already? ah but of course), any vestige of charm, which is awful in Paris - no one here knows me well enough for me to be able to get away with a mood without them being genuinely concerned that something is actually genuinely WRONG. Just for reassurance, nothing ever is. I have a wonderful life and am utterly blessed, bar for the lack of Michael Cera and being a 14 not a 12. My famous capability for drama and moods disappears in actual times of crises, and I in fact come over all English, frightfully stoical, weirdly balanced, and relentlessly determined to behave absoultely impeccably. However, in normal every day life, in times of fatigue and menstruation, I am perfectly capable of crying at a man who barges into me on a metro, and stropping because my best male friend (who, incidentally is ON THE COVER OF THE ABERCROMBIE LOOKBOOK.this is HILARIOUS. He has rope all around him and looks all brooding. In reality he is a sweet shy geography-studying rugby whiz-kid. I weed a bit when i saw it. I share this with you because I can't share it with anyone else, for fear of inflating his ego or simultaneously pissing him off. I am never quite sure how seriously he takes his modelling.) has NOT REPLIED TO MY FACEBOOK. I retain a healthy sense of my own ridiculousness thanks to my wonderful mother and friends but still equally an astonishing belief that I am entitled to behave like a 15 year old.

I fear my sleepless nights every 2 to 3 weeks will never stop - my acceptance of insomnia and everything that comes with it has helped me hugely, but not made the problem go away - and I pity the fool who has to live with me and this for the rest of my life. Oh boo hoo hoo.