It’s 07:40hrs on Tuesday morning. I’ve been awake for over 5 hours. Up for almost 2. I look shattered. And that’s because I am shattered. I’ve always been open about my sleep issues and they go right back to school but at this age now, and with everything you read, I worry more about it. It’s something that I’ve never conquered. I did spend much of the years of 2000 and 2002 sleeping, but that was afternoon napping, long lie ins, and that was simply bereavement, though I didn’t see it at the time. Those two years of deep grief for the loss of my mum strangely led to some of the most restful sleep of my life. It just came during the day and meant I was pretty much out of the loop for a long time. I would be up until 4 or 5am during those final months at Mayflower before moving out of the childhood home, but I never tackled that insomnia as I moved in with a friend who worked nights. Alone in a huge two-floored flat (impossible in London these days for just two people), with my friend working, my sleeping patterns if anything worsened. I still had the run of the flat. I holed myself up in my oversized bedroom on the first floor (I’d lost a coin toss for the top floor bedroom) and would watch endless hours of TV. Curiously, for much of those two years of grieving, I could never listen to music because for some reason it reminded me of my mum. I have no idea why as my mum wasn’t into 80s synth bands. Maybe it was because music transported me mentally back to Mayflower and my mum was indelibly wrapped up in all of that.
© 2024 Daniel Ruiz Tizon
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