Work Text:
"Losing Sleep"
By Rachel Johnson
24 hours, 22 minutes without sleep...
My creative juices are flowing. By now, I've realized that I work best when I'm tired. There's a science behind it and I'm not too lazy to explain it. But I am too lazy to cite it. I figured it be easier to write this essay while I'm dying to lie in my bed. That's when I work best anyways. That way my mind isn't yelling for me to fix everything. It's not complaining about how unbalanced my paragraphs are, how awkward my phrasing is or even if I'm using the wrong words. This way, I won't always be the perfectionist I’m known to be because when I'm tired going on no sleep, messy is my perfect.
15 hours, 6 minutes without sleep...
My mom and I have one thing in common: we both like the Walking Dead. It started with her obsession and slowly bleed into mine, and now, even if we’ve been fighting or the week’s been hard or we haven’t seen each other, it’s become a ritual for us to come together on Sunday evening and watch the Walking dead.
So naturally, my mom would buy anything and everything to do with it - including the dozens of posters that I had yet to hang up. They collected dust on my desk for a good five months before I was able to get around to buying the push pins to hang them all up since none of the push pins I had matched in color.
It was also the day I bought the push pins that I found out that I had a problem.
If I hang up posters they have to be perfectly aligned with even margins in between. Of course, here, in my bed room at 7 o’clock at night, that is not the case. One of the posters falls short a few centimeters compared to the others. I bite my lower lip, thinking how I could fix the posters so that they were all even but I can’t think of any.
It's only a few centimeters, I try to tell myself. In reality it really is only a few centimeters. In fact if you were standing at my door you would hardly notice the difference. But in my mind those few centimeters stretch into inches and I would be able to notice it from a mile away.
I reach a hand up to adjust the poster rubbing my thumb because of how many push pins I've been handling today. I distinctly remember the pain because I had to pull them out again and again because they hadn't been pushed in straight, a pet peeve of mine.
Adjusting the posters won't work. In the back of my mind I know this, but it doesn't stop me from trying again. And again… and again… and again...
I step back and groan at the new arrangement that somehow seem worse than the first. Even when I place the posters in a more artistic way, cross them over each other and try a collage like approach, the fact that one is shorter still bothers me. And even worse, I’ve just found out that another is skinnier. I scrunch my eyes together in frustration and move them back to the original position. At least this way there would be some organization.
"You hung up your posters," my mom says peeking her head through my door to see the final arrangement, "they look great."
“Whatever you think,” I mumbled under my breath.
16 hours, 41 minutes without sleep...
"Just scribble it in," Ms. Jones, our 7th grade math teacher, says messily coloring in her bar graph on the SmartBoard. We’re reviewing for our formative at the end of class today.
“That’s not how I roll,” I joke and the rest of my math class laughs. Then, I really did think I was joking. That coloring in my graph was just me knowing that what I was writing was in fact legible and their was no way to mistake my answer otherwise.
I'll definitely scribble in the test, I think, I'll be rushing because of time. But I don't I color it in like always. I finish just on time.
17 hours, 18 minutes without sleep...
I just can't with this essay right now.
I’m not gonna lie, structured writing is one of my favorite styles. Essays aren't such a chore for me like they are other people. If you simply pay attention in class, a majority of what the teacher says can be used as evidence in your essay - which saps the entire planning part of the essay to a game of find and organize while you're looking through past notes. I'm in 10th grade now, so this is something I could do in my sleep based on repetition alone.
But that’s not what I'm frustrated about.
My first paragraph and third paragraph is 4 whole sentences longer than my second. The entire essay isn’t balanced. It’s fine, it’s the short and simple part of my essay. If I can’t fix it, I’ll ask the teacher to help me.
I end up emailing Ms. DiPaolo later on that day.
18 hours, 2 minutes without sleep...
Just hang in there I think. It's close to the end of the year and I've got everything to look forward too. I don't have school on Friday or the following Monday. My birthday is on Sunday and to make things better it's the 2nd to last week of school.
The only thing standing in my way is the Festival of Nations, an annual sophomore project for my World History class. Each group researches a country and presents their struggles and culture to graders. It's much like a science fair but for history.
By this point, my research paper for South Korea is already done, we only have to finish our creative element and the poster board. Of course, in a group of idealistic thinkers the project isn't as achievable as it seems. Sunday was our group filming a symbolic short film something we believed to go by faster so we could work on our poster.
It's Monday now and my laptop has decided to break and keep crashing. I haven't had any time to work on the poster either. The project is due today so I try to finish the video on the family computer and start the poster. My mom's already left for work and I'm supposed to catch the bus.
"I'll finish this", I tell myself, "I'll just be late to school." I start lining up the materials on the board before taping them. A text comes in. It's Tessa, my partner.
"Paige is sick," it says.
I add a paragraph from her essay to the board - now there's more information on the Korean War and not the culture. I add a paragraph from Tessa's essay on k-pop. Now one side of the board has more information than the other. I add a paragraph from Jwala's essay. Now one Corner of the board is empty. I add a paragraph from mine on religion. I start gluing. It's 8:30 by the time I leave. It's raining I have to walk.
I get there at 9:22, 28 minutes late - I have World History 1st period.
19 hours, 52 minutes without sleeping...
It's morning and I don't have time to put on makeup. I'm tired, where are my glasses?
I look through my closet pulling out a pair of black pants. I pull them on. These give me canal toe, I notice. Why did I let my mom buy these? I pull them off hanging them back on the hanger before pulling out a skirt. This makes my stomach look big and I haven't shaved in a week. I through on a looser skirt and a pair of tights. It looks better but my stomach could be flatter. I start looking for a shirt.
This ones cute, I think. Ugh, it's a t-shirt, I can't wear it to school. I start looking and find a white sweater. This could work, and it's baggy and hides my stomach. But I need a collar under it. I sigh looking for a collared shirt. There's a black one, but the collar doesn't set right because my shoulders slant down.
Shit, I think pulling the shirt off and looking for another. This one sets right but it's long sleeves under a sweater in April. I guess I'll burn to death, I think pulling it on. My bright pink cupcake bra pokes out slightly.
“Are you serious?” I ask myself stripping off my layers.
"Are you ready?" My mom asks.
"Yes", I lie, searching my drawer for another bra. I pull on my shirts. I don't have any matching shoes. This can't be happening. I pull on black boots, though they match in color it's two different styles that don't blend.
"Rachel!"
"I'm coming!" I've snapped before I've even realized. I'm just tired, I try to reason with myself. I look in the mirror. My face is too long, shoulders too far, legs hairy, my hair is utter crap.
"Rachel!" My mom calls again. I sigh grabbing my backpack. Some days I just don't look right. It's my body, I can't wear the things I want to wear. They only look good on skinny people.
I climb into the car, frustrated for another day of school - wait, where are my glasses?
20 hours, 24 minutes without sleep...
It was at 2am, when I found that moment. The moment where I was able to close my eyes and listen to the world around me - only this time there was no traffic. There were no late night frat parties or the screaming of rebelled teenagers at how royally fucked up the world is. For the first time, in the 16 years I've been alive, I was able to listen to the world - truly listen to it. I could hear the crickets and the small crackling of the fireplace just a few feet away from where I sat. It was the moment I wanted to last forever. Even longer, I thought, pulling my knees up to my chest and wrapping my arms around my legs so that my hands hooked with each other just in front of my shins. I allowed myself to free fall into the beautiful sounds that I had longed to hear at night. It was a welcomed escape from-
I should really be sleeping now, I think. Then of course writing one more sentence couldn't hurt right? I mean, I've done so well so far I should keep going until I can't think anymore. By now I know it's easier to write at night. Correction, it's easier to write creatively at night. I've got 13 pages on word, I can probably reach twenty before my alarm goes off.
Wait - how does that make sense? I think writing a sentence out completely. He was just outside a paragraph ago there's no way he's already home - screw it, I'll just put a time jump here.
I type out 3 more pages - I should probably sleep I have school tomorrow.
But you're almost finished....
15 hours, 3 minutes without sleep...
It’s quite possible that I know my body better than the average person. I know how long I can write before my hand gets sore. I know how many pages I can write in a word document before I have to put my wrist braces on. I even know that if I haven't slept in 24 hours I start to fall asleep around 5:20. Knowing this, I can calculate what I can spend more time on during the day and what to work on at night. I can calculate how much sleep I'll lose, and how hard it will be for me to wake up the next day. I've refined a nearly perfect schedule for school nights and weekends so that everything gets done on time. Then again, a perfect schedule can't be so perfect, right? Growing up, I've been obsessed with the idea of perfection, but I've also learned that being perfect also means not being perfect.