Apr 25, 2004 Personal Life

Insomnia

I don’t really have insomnia, but I feel that way on nights like this. We hit Beta 1 ZBB on Friday, and I had the most amazing night of sleep last night: slept like a brick for 8 hours and woke up feeling refreshed and alive. I feel like sleep is an undervalued experience by far too many people. I think that good untroubled sleep is truly a luxury. I got into bed around midnight tonight, ready to go to sleep and repeat the same lovely experience as last night.

Regardless, I had a phone conversation shortly thereafter that totally screwed up the whole sleeping well thing. I tossed and turned for a little while, and finally got up again. I seriously considered heading off to this 24 hour starbucks out in Kirkland for a while, but I realize that jazzing myself up on a Latte at three-sixteen in the morning while I’m feeling this distraught really won’t do me any good.

I think it bears mentioning for anyone finishing up their undergraduate degree that they are in the midst of a terribly hard transition. I suffered quite terribly with it last year. I was incredibly depressed for at least two months just before and after I graduated from school. Seriously, I would go to work for a couple hours a day, and then drag myself off to a coffee shop where I would literally smoke an entire pack of cigarettes over the course of the next few hours. It sadly seems to happen to everyone.

The important thing to keep in mind during this whole phase is that it is just a phase. We’ve been trained since the age of five to wake up, go to school, and go back home only to start the cycle again all over the next day. Graduating from school is usually the start of real adult life for most people. Prior to that you don’t need to work 40 hours a week (nor can you), and you always get your summers off. After you get that magical slip of paper from your place of higher education, you’re harshly dumped into the real world in a sink or swim-type situation.

This is what happens. And it sucks. We’re totally unprepared for what really comes after school ends. No one ever teaches us how to live our lives, we’re only taught how to learn (a seeming contradiction in itself). The first few months of flailing around are the hardest. After that it gets easier. Much easier.

For the sake of doing something I modified the front page on brethorsting, here. I had been looking at a website my boss mentioned to me yesterday, and I ended up modeling the new brethorsting front page after seattlehappyhour’s creator’s personal website (the guilty party knows who they are ;-) ).

I think I am going to try the sleeping thing again now. Peace, love, and rock-and-roll, everyone.