How I Capture Sleep

These days it gets harder and harder for twenty something year old "kids" to fall asleep at night. We have a long list of stuff on our minds which can consist of college, work, relationships, parental pressures and expectations, rent, bills, and even what to eat tonight; the list goes on. After battling with this list during the day, it has the power to follow us into the night and to haunts our dreams. They leave us with nightmares that takes our energy instead of adding to it as sleep should. Add sleep to that list of stuff. It's a never ending cycle because as soon as we check one thing off the list, three more are added to it.

So when I, like the other "kids", can't seem to get my mind to stop thinking about all the shit I have to do tomorrow morning and therefore have difficulty falling asleep at night, I think about different scenes, scenarios. These can vary from anything I did during the day that made me smile to a story that's completely fabricated by the creativity of my mind. Creating a world that I control, not stop but to ease my mind and slow it down. In short, I have many that I can choose from, but I have a specific one that I particularly like. Once I've chosen what scenario I want to live in before I drift off to sleep, I close my eyes, take a deep breathe, and...

...I am in a car in the middle of June, enjoying a midnight drive with all the windows down. I'm not driving though; I don't like to drive if I don't have to. I am in the passenger seat, not in control of the wheel, where we're going, or how we get there. Instead, I control the music on the stereo and that's fine with me. I turn on a playlist that is filled with the "best" songs, "Keep Driving", "Heroes", "Out of Tune", and "505" to name a few. And by the "best" artists like The Backseat Lovers, Lovejoy, Harry Styles, and Noah Kahan. I know that everyone in the car will know at least one of the songs. I'm not really concerned with who's in the car with me, but most of the time, you are the one driving. I wait for the perfect song to come on, which means any song that lights the fire of passion in my soul, moves me to the edge of my seat and keeps me there. I unbuckle my seat belt and my eyes follow it as it hits the door from the lack of resistance. I take hold of the grab handle--the "oh shit" bar, as my mom calls it--and swing myself out to sit on the windowsill, and still gripping the handle I lean back into the night. Streetlamps, stars, and the moon all gathered to take us somewhere far away from this small town we've grown a custom to. Because everyone knows that if you're going to go far in life, you have to go far...

..."Hey, it's time to get up. We have to go to campus this morning and you have to go to work today."

"Mmm, what time is it?"

"It's a quarter after nine."

"Right, okay." And just like that the list is back in the front of my mind and yours. The "new" day that was promised is exactly like the last one. And the last one. And the one before that. Nothing ever really changes and even the ones that seem life altering end up feeling as normal as the small changes.