An Analogy Of Sorts

Life is a funhouse. There are moments of silence before a big bang as a mannequin jumps out at you; there are dark corners that you dare not enter; there are mirrors that distort the way you and other people perceive you to be; and like all good funhouses, there is light at the end of the tunnel. You come out of the flimsy trailer turned carnival ride, breathe that not so fresh carnival air and smile at the pure joy that you made it.

Right now, I’m in that dark corner of my Funhouse. I’m in what I like to call a low mood. Not quite depressed, but certainly not happy. My family is walking on eggshells around me, trying to be there, but also avoiding confrontation that a low mood brings out of me.

I’ve had insomnia for about three weeks now. The days are blending together to the point where on a Wednesday afternoon I think it’s Saturday. My body is exhausted by morning and my brain ain’t doing so well either. I try to stay awake after a night like that – trying to trick my body into a reasonable sleep schedule. But I always seem to cave.

The other night I stayed awake, tossing and turning until the dark night sky turned a turquoise-y blue and then I crashed in my bed without even realizing it. Unfortunately I had plans yesterday with my dad so my mom was calling me at 11:30 trying to wake me up. I did get up, got showered and dressed, even made my bed and tidied up my room a little. By then it was 12:30 and I was expecting my dad at 1:00. I tried keeping myself busy – though I’m not very mobile in the morning, (especially when I’ve hardly slept) – all I could think of doing in my haze of sleepiness was to relax and read. Unfortunately in my sleep-deprived-stupor I didn’t assess the possibility of reading sending me off to sleep. Which it did.

And of course to make my day even more-so less productive, my cell phone kept going straight to voicemail on its own accord, allowing me to not know that my dad was calling me to come down from my apartment and meet him in the parking lot. (I live in an apartment building above a convenience store, which has no bell or communication system to allow people to ring up to enter the building. Hence my dad calling my cell phone [also a side note, this building was built in the 1950-1960’s, you know, BEFORE cell phones. I wonder how people knew their guests had arrived with no way for them to communicate.] ). So my dad left and I didn’t wake up until just after three.

In the end we got a hold of each other and spent some time together. This has been going on for weeks. The falling asleep waiting for people I’ve made plans with thing, I mean. As I write this I again have not slept a wink all night. I came up with the brilliant idea of staying awake all day at my mom and dad’s, doing laundry and other things to stay awake. But I can already feel myself getting fuzzy around the edges and a little bit wobbly on my feet. I think I will crash before my ride over there is even awake.

What does this all have to do with me and my path to skinny-me? Everything. If you consider the fact that while I am sleeping a regular 8-10 hours a day – during the day – my body knows better, it knows that I should be sleeping at night. So any attempt or even thought of doing anything physical is dragged down by my droopy eyelids and my wobbly exhausted frame. The only upside is that I don’t eat very much when I’m on this schedule. What usually happens is after a night of not sleeping or sleeping very little, I’ll have breakfast at six or seven in the morning (still delusional with the idea that I can stay awake another sixteen hours and therefore should seek nourishment) which is usually something very, very simple like rice crispies or toast with honey or peanut butter. But as mentioned earlier I fall asleep watching TV or knitting and before I know it my sister is coming home from work (around five or six). So I’d make a simple dinner for myself and maybe I’d have a granola bar or popcorn later on and stay up again during the night occupying my tired body and wired brain with mundane tasks like updating software on my computer or my favourite pastime reading (book nerd!). But while I’m up for eight hours at night I (on most nights) will have little to eat. There are the rare times, and they usually involve a migraine, where I can’t stop eating. I just feel that hungry. (When I get a migraine, eating helps, especially if I eat really bad-for-you foods, or milkshakes from McDonalds. I don’t know how it magically makes my migraines go away, but I don’t care as long as it keeps working.)

So with this low, dark-corner-of-a-carnival-ride mood, I’ve managed to do what I’ve been doing for a few months now, which is maintaining my weight i.e. not gain. Now I just need to take that image of myself in the distorted make-you-look-skinny-mirror and set it as a goal, a priority and a gift to me, before I leave the Funhouse of life.