Imogen Heap once sang,
“There’s beauty in the breakdown,”
and I admit, I found that to be a little too dramatic at one point in my life but that’s because I had not experienced October 4 2011 until today.
What makes today special is how I had not gotten any sleep since 11:30am yesterday, October 3. (I may have exaggerated I actually dozed off for two minutes in class) The sad part of it all is that I was not up all night working on my thesis, which has been eating up so much of my time lately, I was up all night thinking. And the question “what did you think about,” is not the right one to ask but rather “what did you not think about?”
All sorts of thoughts ran through my head and that’s what usually happens every night but for some reason my brain just had to share what was going on in there with the rest of my organs. I told myself twice that instead of thinking, I should listen to my breathing (something I learned from yoga) and it took me seconds to forget to focus on the sound of my lungs taking in oxygen and so I reverted to my worries, concerns, and random questions and realizations which included stuff like, “how does it feel to punch someone in the face and miss,” “would I rather be a shark or a dolphin,” or “what is it like to have a tomboy for a bestfriend?” Each and every thought, I entertained even though they seemed too stupid to happen.
But that only took up the first 6 hours of October 4. I got up to smell the coffee and watched TV. I ended up watching a documentary film about Justin Bieber. That and a re-run of Keeping up with the Kardashians were my choices. I decided to give the kid a chance. Do I think he’s gay? Nahh. He’s still young. I’m hoping that he’ll give up the cheesy lyrics and make them more testosterone oriented before he turns 21 or around that time.
Between eight-thirty and nine o clock was when disaster struck. I don’t know if it was the lack of sleep but I was just so upset when someone got all up in my face acting like it’s so wrong to not get any sleep. It’s called insomnia, bitch. And this where the lyric which mentioned earlier makes sense. I broke down and told that person everything I needed to say but because I was running on nothing but caffeine, I may have raised my voice and cussed a little bit and then cussed some more. It was not beautiful at all.
However, I did make up for it. Another person may have gotten on my nerves while all of that was happening but we were not face-to-face (thank goodness). Luckily, there’s the truth so I did not have to do any verbal damage. I realized that even though it would be a relief to tell a person exactly what I’m thinking, it is more important to stick to the truth. Was it easy? Absolutely not but looking back at my morning I now see that if there was any beauty in my breakdown, it came out in the way I handled the second situation. Instead of being a bitch all over again I was human.
I believe that anything that happens can be good for something and breakdowns are one of those. Breakdowns are for reminding people that having control over the mind, body and spirit is the key to staying sane. So, when the body and mind (which are usually the first to be affected) begin to unhinge then it is up to the spirit to get that shit together. Once I snapped back to reality – my reality – I was alleviated from the horror of not being completely in control.
Going about my day was still tough, of course. The world is not the same when you’re awake for too long. I got by because the song that was stuck in my head became my anthem. I realized how its lyrics were fitting for today’s stress. Before I knew it I was laughing again and thinking about how Justin Bieber helped keep me sane for an hour or so.
This is the song that I sang to myself. I think I closed my eyes each time the chorus played and sang my heart out when I was alone in my room:
