I've been sleeping with the blinds open again. The window on the far side, the side with the most city light. The side with the parking lot light that blares orange even when the blinds are closed. Last night I woke and the light was brighter than I could handle, than I remembered. It's brighter than ever, I thought, and I squinted across the bed to let down the blinds a few more inches.
I've been sleeping with the blinds open again. Not on purpose, but not accidentally. I used to do it all the time, but that was when the lights seemed comforting, necessary, and less bright. Since, I've read how even a little bit of light at night can disrupt your sleep. I haven't been feeling well in the middle of the day, and I'm always tired, but I don't bother to put down all of the blinds. Just like I don't bother to wash my face at night half the time because it's easier not to. Just like I ignore my birth control pill at the hour I'm supposed to take it every night and lazily take it some time the next morning before work, so that I'm always one behind.
I always feel one day behind.
I went shopping yesterday afternoon for shorts, which took me to the mall in Spartanburg, a mall I haven't been to in months. The mall left me listless and grumpy--there were no shorts long enough for a 26 year old but short enough to make me feel tall and potentially cute. I went to Target and ultimately found one pair of shorts but no tank tops, which had been a late addition to my search. Today after work, with my one success of yesterday, I went straight to the mall, convinced I would see with fresh eyes and a fresh waist line. But it was all the same and even looked worse on hangers than the previous day. Target again, after, to buy the same successful pair of shorts in a different color. But my size was all gone except in the dark khaki, which created white rings on my things where the shorts ended, clearly a different kind of 5 than the ones I'd already bought. I debated sandals, then, because I needed something new. I debated sandals in colors I didn't want but felt good. I carried three pairs around, then only one, and then none when I realized I couldn't think of a time when I would wear them over my other sandals.
As I drove away from Target, I was immediately anxious about the two hours I had wasted searching the same places for the same thing I had already searched for and, partially, found the day before. Two hours evaporate like they were never there. And all I have to show for them is a bottle of Ibuprofen and a sympathy card in a plastic bag. Once home, I need to cook dinner. I need to cook dinner because I know there is fresh chicken in the fridge that has a sell-date of May 10, thirteen days ago. I need to use this chicken that I spent $5.13 on over two weeks ago, and I need to use the green pepper and onion I bought on the same day to make fajitas, my favorite dish that I don't think I've made once in the near year I've lived here. The green pepper feels slightly wrinkly. The onion is soft and puffed with mold.
This reminds me again that I should never go on a true grocery shopping trip and buy fresh food. I won't eat it. And when I want to it will be too late and it will be because I have to because I know it will soon be too late. I am always a day behind.
On Saturday I will fly to Kansas City to see Jedsen for the first time since the afternoon we shared in mid-February. We will move him to Chicago next week. He sleeps in the dark. In a dark so deep I wake drunk and hungover and sad because I don't know what time it is and when I find out I will be mad because I will have slept all morning. Jedsen thinks it's good that I sleep all morning, but it makes me feel behind, lost, like I have to recover who I am and what I mean. Waking to a forced dark closes me in. Tells me I should forget my love of the sun. Means I am alone even though I am less alone than I ever am.
The lights mean I'm here. The lights mean, are real. The only real time is at home or in nature. In nature, I tend to forget time.
