2:38 am: A little closer to the edge

~ Live & Learn

gif-screens-technology-sleep-insomnia

1:14 a.m.

The digital fluorescent clock leaves its reflection on the night stand. What a pretty color! What is wrong with you?

Turn pillow. Adjust. Hot. I skootch Zeke over.  I get up. Cup hands, slurp water. Then to Toilet.

Switch on iPhone. And then there was Light.  I flip through emails. Blog posts. Morning papers.

1:43 a.m.

Close eyes.

Replay Message on answering machine from a week ago: “Tests good, But”…and a long pause. But, What? “Cholesterol a problem.” Cholesterol a problem. WTH is that?

Snacking minutes before bed.  Two heaping handfuls of chocolate chips. Three chunks of watermelon from Costa Rica, juices running down my chin, which I wipe clean with the back of my hand. Sticky hand desperately grasps for More, reaches for the jug of green tea, label shouting Zero Calorie! – a wave of dull green rolls forward and then back again leaving a thin film on the plastic walls – Agent Green. Spray it on lawn and it kills dandelions. I release, saving the chemicals for later.  A mid-summer day flashes from days gone, slurping clear, cold well water from a garden hose, bare feet on long dewy grass between toes. I’m staring down on a solitary, sunny yellow dandelion. Take me back.

There’s tingling in my chest. Cholesterol doing the breast stroke in a thickening sugary blood stream. Heart pumping, sweating, heaving. Arteries thickening, coated with white granules of Brazilian sugar cane. Addict. 

And it takes Ocean Vuong, a 27-year old poet born from Saigon, to illuminate, with his poem titled “A Little Closer to the Edge”:

“The night full of black teeth.”

Notes:

 

33 thoughts on “2:38 am: A little closer to the edge”

  1. Maybe a health retreat or a silent retreat for a week with all social media, phones distractions, banned ha!? I feel stressed reading about it. I do hope you get some good sleep and your health is okay! 🙂

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  3. Another one of *those* nights where all the gremlins sit on your chest, smacking their lips. Allow yourself a few more days of cholesterol-rebellion. You’ll come soon enough to the ways of self-healing and (maybe) Lipitor. And you’ll see your own Pattern reasserting itself in this, too. Compliance, rebellion. Compliance, rebellion.

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  7. Ok, hard to hit the ‘like’ button on this one pal. Love your writing, as always, but do *not* like the high cholesterol news. But first, a brief reprimand–why the hell do you have your smart phone in your bedroom? *Everything* ya read says this is a recipe for insomnia, my friend….. Ok, back to our regular programming. Sugar addiction is tough, but so are you. Maybe a cold turkey approach?

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    1. Smiling. I have cut out cookies. One may say, big deal. Don’t you dare ask me how many cookies I inhale a day. Don’t ask. But, you’ll be happy to no I am slammin’ into the cold turkey approach. I am close….

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  8. OK: From a sleep apnea guy, insomniac: put away the clock, the iPhone, the lighted room. No alcohol before bed. No food after eight. That is a START! As my sleep doc said, that is just the beginning. Round two is coming!

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  11. Sorry to hear about your cholesterol,
    Hope it’s manageable and under control soon.

    Considering how productive, efficient and committed you are (on all levels) I’m impressed you can do all this with little sleep.

    “Hit Me”, I believe, was the title of one of your older unforgettable posts,
    You bring so much LIGHT into the dark.

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