I don’t sleep well in places that are not my home.
I don’t like to admit that, I feel as if I have some weakness, an inflexibility that disallows me from joining the jet-set crowd. But it is true. I can’t sleep right now because there are strange sounds and the lighting is different. It is like moving to a new place, but without the familiar smells of your own stuff.
When I first lived on my own, it was on the beach in Oceanside. I lived under a rock, and I mention that because it was a very nice rock, and it was significant in my development. I slept in sand, which incidentally is very cold at night, but has good insulation. I used an over-sized flannel shirt to cover myself, and then I would pack sand on top of it. My rock sat atop other rocks, and that formed my “beach house”, which sheltered me from the elements, unless it was high tide, in which case I had an elemental alarm clock. Fortunately, the tide comes in gradually enough that it was never a threat.
I slept like a baby, under that rock.
It was the stress. From being kicked out/running away. From scrounging for money and food. From not knowing enough to be as frightened for myself as I am for that past me, now. There was a lot going on, and it was all in the moment, intense, in-tense, and the puzzles my brain worked out had direct results and consequences. Fascinating.
Now I stay at friends’ houses, and in hotels. My worries are about making a certain amount of money over months, rather than by teenage curfew. I can’t sleep because I know a lot more than I did then.
I am reading Rework. I should probably be sleeping. ^_^
Related posts: