bedtime stories

it’s a little before 5 in the morning and for the third night in a row my dreams have been vivid and harrowing enough that i feel i’d rather go without enough sleep than endure them any longer. i always have bad dreams, but only rarely ones that feel so pointedly doomsaying and dire. i’ve grown accustomed to them to the point that i analyze what might be affecting me down to the way i’m laying in bed, sleeping barefoot vs. wearing socks, to the adverse effects of being too warm (a heavy, warm comforter becomes a weight or a trap in dream language). i know the dangers of sleeping on my back vs. on my side and i know that tucking one foot into the curve of the other is my best chance to pass through unscathed. lately i’ve been trying to decide whether i’m getting worse or if this is just the way of things when i’m feeling particularly hypochondriacal.
the story of getting older seems to be, at heart, the story of more things going wrong, more often. it feels impossible not see illnesses as tests or trials in the personal narrative we cobble together over time. when one thing is wrong, i can deal. more things start going wrong and i can’t help – literally – feeling that it’s a reflection of my character, as if we were living in a greek play where the gods despatched malady for fun, to keep us on our toes. it is a trick of the mind to observe an onset of pain, or infection, and take it as a reaction to whatever it is you’re doing at the time. it may be that, but it’s just as likely random and without any meaning at all, like most things. i wish this were an easier concept for us to live with.
in the light of day it is easy to be rational. i like being rational. but it becomes more and more clear in the night, when we’re most vulnerable, that rationality is not really a human trait. it could be argued that this is our natural tendency to imagine and think in stories, which sets us apart as a species more than anything else i know of. it is one of the finest things about being human.
but not right now.