I N S O M N I A

Insomnia is the devil. I haven't experienced this kind of sleeplessness since I was in Tübingen, trying to study for my bio-physics-chem-anatomy finals. That was an understandable bout of this cursed disorder–I was clearly under a lot of pressure to memorize a billion scientific facts in another language, while dealing with culture clash and a harsh winter. But this time around I just have some strange, internal anxiety. I wake up at the smallest sounds. For instance, last night I would bolt up as if I'd sat on a hedgehog at every rotation of the neighborhood's sprinklers. I've never before been roused by the purr of sprinklers, or the rare and faint whining of some neighbor's cat, or the almost infrasonic grumbling of someone's AC unit being turned on. Even the fleeting rustle of my papers being blown off my desk by my ceiling fan woke me up. The worst part is that you know you should be sleeping, and the anxiety caused by not sleeping makes sleeping even harder. It's a terrible, vicious cycle. In my utter exhaustion I did the only therapeutic thing I could think of and got out my watercolors. I don't really like to think about what I'm painting, and just start putting color on paper. At 3 am I seemed to produce a beet. At first I made a tree-like structure with blood-red paint, but it reminded me too much of the aorta, which instantly triggered traumatic memories of med school, so I quickly gave it leaves and it morphed into a beet. Good thing I swerved to avoid the memories of my anatomy books because that would have heightened my insomnia to such a degree that it would probably be the cause of my death.

I'm relieved that it turned into a beet. Beets make me happy and calm. Something about them is pacifying. After my hands could no longer muster up the strength to suport my paintbrush, I retired to my bed and waited another hour for sleep to come. I guess it finally did, but the few hours of shuteye I got were troubled. 

BETA VULGARIS