Playing Sleep

three » the mixtape

"Put your thoughts to sleep, do not let them cast a shadow over your heart. Let go of thinking." - rumi

One of the many things I had learned about insomnia, was that there was no warning bells to let you know when you might actually sleep. One moment, you're feeling as tired as you do any day, and the next you're asleep with no clue on how it happened. So, the one thing I wasn't counting on when I arrived back at my flat, was that I would fall asleep.

As soon as I walked through the door and collapsed on my bed, intending to rest for a couple of minutes before starting the mixtape, I fell asleep. When I woke up a good seven straight hours later, I ended up spending a further fifteen minutes simply lying there in shock.

For weeks I hadn't slept any more than four or five hours, all of which would have a half-hour to an hour interval between each hour I was actually asleep. The typical insomniacs sleeping pattern, things didn't usually alter it unless one was to take a sleeping pill, which most avoided as much as they could.

As I lay in bed after I had already woken from the best sleep I'd had in weeks, I couldn't help but think about her. Her being Emily. With her long brunette hair, bright green eyes, wide smile and completely hit-or-miss attitude, it was hard not to. Not to mention the simple fact that I had to create the perfect mixtape of almost entirely punk songs all of which had to be perfectly laid out to create the most intricate wave-like effect on ones emotions. A pick me up song, followed by a chilled and laid-back melody, again followed by a pick-me up of sorts and from there it's easy to get the picture.

"Right." I mumbled to myself as I pulled myself off of my bed and onto the cool wooden floor below. Using the muttered word as a kind of motivation to hurry up and start the mixtape, I made my way to my living room which housed the couch and my laptop, both of which were needed.

Booting my laptop up took a few moments, so I made a large cup of tea to see me through some of the mix, and grabbed my headphones off of the coffee table as I settled down. Beginning with the notepad app on my desktop, I made a list of all the bands and the names of the songs I wanted to include, googling the occasional song just to make sure it was the right fit. After which I began to order the songs, picking out the starter and the one to wrap it all out, there were still the songs throughout the middle to organise.

About an hour later, it was done. The CD disk popped out of the side of my laptop, the mixtape stored within and I laid it out on its cover as I popped the lid off of my sharpie. I had to think of a title, something funny and ironic, because a compilation of punk songs didn't exactly scream romance. Because Emily seemed like the kind of person to appreciate a good joke, I finally decided on Punk Music for Dummies, which I scrawled over the white side.

Giving up on any cover art, I flipped the lid closed and relaxed back against my couch. When is it acceptable to call her? I couldn't help but think to myself, turning around so my head reclined on one of the arm rests and my feet on the other.

Surely, it could be seen as desperate to call her so soon, on the same day as the one I had promised to make her it. According to my male stereo-types I should wait roughly one day at least before I made contact, however that seemed far too long. Perhaps it was because my disorder made each day twice as long as it normally would be, or possibly because I just wanted to see her so bad, I couldn't tell the difference between the two.

Giving up, I stood up from my couch, grabbed my keys and the mixtape before hurrying out the door. Whenever I couldn't make a decision, or my disorder made the nights too lonely to handle, I'd make my way to the gym. Half of the reason was to get me actually doing something, the other half used it as a way to distract myself from the encompassing feeling of either pure loneliness or unadulterated stress.