VAL DAY-SANCHEZ

Copyright © 2016 Val Day-Sanchez

All rights reserved.

VAL DAY-SANCHEZ

Copyright © 2016 Val Day-Sanchez

All rights reserved.

The Bedtime Monster is happiest when you aren'tsleeping. He spends his days watching you. Studying to see what insecurities and tucked away anxieties most trouble you. It notes every embarrassing moment. Every instant where you felt you had lost control. He takes note of how you play it over and over in your mind. Recalling it later, when you've laid your head upon your pillow. As your exhausted body begs for its only cure, he shows off his inventive loop of your day's errors. It is the root of your social anxiety. Every moment where you choice you made wrong, each instance where you were caught off guard and your instinct misled you. It all descends upon you the second you close your eyes. The monster watches, less consumed with what you did but transfixed by your lack of control. It is your inability to push your emotions aside, in order to rest.

You utilize particular tactics. The most obvious and available, the one that allows you to push their worry away. It comes in the form of a Sleep Aid. Allowing the user to push the inventions of the Bedtime Monster away and begin to arrive at sleeps door. This maidens him but only for a moment because he knows what must be done. He pulls out your worst memories. Things that happened months or even years ago, things that you had long forgotten about but had never truly reconciled within your mind. The whispers of events that perhaps you were once too young to understand. None of this is considered off limits to the monsters that wards off sleep. Suddenly your eyes fly open.

You are plagued with questions of times long past. Unable to free your mind of such history you turn to your electronics. Perhaps it is the television. Late night programming offers mindless entertainment that just may settle your overactive cognitive processes. The monster watches as you attempt to expel him from your obsessions, but you fail. You then turn to your smartphone. There are always emails to respond to, to-do lists that were left unfinished. Then you are bored of it but wide awake. You remember a blog you read about blue light and witch off the phone. Cleaning that escaped you after you returned home is your next strategy. Each of these things provide a distraction to that the constant narrative that plays throughout your mind.

Tire your body and your mind will have to follow. You enter your extra room, in an attempt to escape the confines of your seemingly cursed bedroom. It is a multipurpose room, the futon reminds you that it is at times a guest room. The desk pushed against the wall signifies its station as a home office, while what led you here in the hours long before dawn is, the exercise equipment. You begin at first to walk, pushing it up to a jog and before long you are sprinting. You feel lightheaded and not in the “runners high” rather the, I may pass out from a sheer exhaustion sort of way. You turn off the machine and fall upon the futon drenched in your own sweat. You feel your irritation rising as your accelerated heartbeat only wants to move more in order to maintain its current speed. You have not tired yourself out, you have embarked on a second wind.

The exercise had the effect of four cups of coffee rather than a powerful sleep agent. The shower seems like a likely choice. At this point it is clear that your current state will not propel you on the road you seek. The road to unencumbered sleep escapes you still. The hot water heater groans and gurgles as you step underneath the shower head. You feel prepared to start your day, no matter that it is still another six hours before your alarm will ring. The bedtime monster begins to watch with ease as you struggle to succumb to your overtiredness. You fight to convince your hyperactive brain to be silenced. You begin with the logical argument first. You recite how soon dawn will arrive. Then you move towards an emotional appealing statement. You explain how you will be yawning throughout your day. You finish it off with the concept of physical torture. You bring up how headaches will accent your sluggishness as your body yearns for rest. The thoughts of the afternoon hours that will be plagued with your desire to collapse. All afternoon you will be consumed with the desire to curl into a soft and quiet place in a drastic attempt to catch up on all the hours you have lost, lying uncomfortable, begging for sleep.

You explain all this to your brain, warning it of the day to come if it does not stop with all of the outdated riddles. They appear as though they are of the upmost importance. This is how they continue tricking you into believing that it would be unwise, irresponsible or even dangerous to abandon them now. As if you can’t leave them unsolved. How can you go to sleep without knowing how long the gestation period for an octopus is? Or do they lay eggs? How can you truly rest when you may have possibly upset Cheryl at work with your brazen way of speaking? Sleep could never be granted if you aren't positive the water bill was paid.

Then you begin to think only of sleep, calculating exactly how many minutes you can achieve if you were to fall asleep right now. Your brain runs calculations, dividing and multiplying, soon you are once again wide awake. The relaxation from the hot shower a distant memory as you lay, bone stiff, in your mattress that suddenly feels extremely uncomfortable. You think of moving to the couch but then grapple with the idea of whether or not you should turn on the TV. You begin to reflect on previous podcast you have heard about, the effects of television and sleep. And so it continues.

The bedtime monster watches approvingly as the myriad of useless questions fill your mind, keeping you wide awake. Knowing that the only way to defeat it is to reject the concept of days and nights. To instead realize that there is never an end. That things in life will constantly be competing for your attention. Sleep comes to those who accept this truth.