Never Sleep

Have you ever kept your eyes closed and allowed the sensation of a quite room fill your heart?

Breathe in the air, a mixed fragrance of stale body and fresh water flowing in through the cracked window. The blankets making it a bit claustrophobic and yet your feet sticking out of the bottom of your covers just enough to get to breathe and for your mind to be at ease. I could feel the bed head catching drafts of fresh air as it circled my room, and with my eyes closed I can almost see the swirling of air, that had been around me all night long as I slept, or at least for the few hours I actually was able to. The warm air rising and the cool air falling to the ground, fighting dancing overhead.

I opened my eye and could see the gray dull light illuminating almost from the walls, but originating from the dull light outside passing through the white blinds. But as each little breeze caught the shades, the orange of a rising sun sprinkled into the room it seemed like magic, that we get to experience the color, that we get to see those hues.

I went to bed anxious and I woke up anxious, my heart beating fast, or at least it felt like it. As I took my pulse I couldn’t even tell if it was beating at all. I threw off the blankets and sitting on the bed placed my feet on the ground. I could hear the cars passing by a few floors below my apartment; puddles splashing, sand and pebbles crunching. Maybe too some voices off in the distance, or maybe just distant TVs. I kept waking up to that gray light that bleeds in through the drapes. With the orange lines of light stretched across my floor and the sticky gross hot feeling from an anxious sleep. The feeling came from somewhere in my chest. I knew the fuel that feed it was in between my ears, but nothing could stop the flow you’d need to put the fire out. Both working in a synergy I could not control. I took a deep breathe and closed my eyes trying to remember to relax my shoulders and concentrate on the breathing maybe I could just calm myself down with the old tricks my mom taught me, but they hadn’t worked in years and I knew it would be temporary.

I rose and walked to my door, the head ache was horrible, and the pounding of my heart increased, somewhat arrhythmic, but after a few beats back to normal, though the pressure in my head did not subside. I opened the door. The blue light shown from above the sink, forcing me to squint. I stubbed my pinky toe on the door frame and swore under my breathe. As I walked to the bathroom, I couldn’t decide, do I pee with the light on or off, was I awake enough to not pee on the floor, or did I need the light? One of the toughest questions that early in the morning.

As I turned on the water and pulled the metal thing to start the shower, my eyes fell back to the mirror. I had one of those moments, where I could not tell if I looked my age or not, if I thought anything was looking back, or if I thought reflections in mirrors were of any reality at all or just mere color I was able to experience. And then I remembered...

Today was the day. “Oh Crap!” I thought the air missing from my lungs, my eyes bounced around the bathroom. I had totally forgotten, that this was the first day of the biggest adventure I would ever take. The beginning of foreign travels, of mistakes and successes and the making of some of the best friends I would have, yet I didn’t know that yet, and the “Oh crap!” that was from the realization that I hadn’t packed yet. But first I have to back up, first you have to understand how I got there, standing in front of that mirror a bit dehydrated, engulfed in that feeling of great expectation and utter fear.

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