2023.02.22 - escape hatch
i've been sleeping horribly—i think i might have sleep apnea? i've struggled to get good sleep since 2018, but i could always attribute it to other things—teeth clenching, crohn's flare, early morning construction, bedtime procrastination. but it seems like it's been getting worse these last few months, the inevitable waking in the middle of every night, throat dry, feeling like i haven't been getting enough air. i truly can't recall the last time my body let me sleep for 8-10 hours straight and wake up refreshed. i wish i didn't hate making calls and setting up appointments, and even more so when i feel like death, but i need to schedule a sleep study...
the worse i feel in my body, the more disconnected i feel from everything around me. like i'm not really present in the sensations of touching and talking and typing. as every jolt of pain in my jaws or eyes or stomach brings me unwillingly into my body, i reflexively pull back, hanging around somewhere behind the feeling self, where i can get through the day. it's not really a place hospitable to desire, just impulse—the constant urging toward escape by way of layering distraction on distraction. compiling a backlog, browsing google maps, playing repetitive video games. the deferral of living to an imagined time and place where life can be fully lived. not in this place, this acheful almost-life, land of soreness and strained capacities.
i try to remind myself to take deep breaths, to feel the pleasure in breathing, to keep myself fed and watered, to stretch, to feel the stretch in the stretch. to attend to. to not put off replying. to not put off feeling, thinking, living. to stay present long enough to cook the food in my fridge.
i wish i felt better. i wish it were something i could just release into the air. it's not all suffering all the time. it's just like a limit, a boundary over everything, a sinking every so often. a hole i keep sliding into, have to keep lifting myself out of so i can keep going. and i do. i keep going..