With lack of sleep comes a lot more reading

Sleep is one of the things that went completely haywire since I busted up my knee. At first, there was not one complete night: I'd lie in bed, eyes wide open, until midnight had long passed and only manage to get in several hours. But with the narcotics, I started sleeping like a comatose baby every night. It was great, until I couldn't wake up early in the mornings and felt hazy-headed for the rest of the day, only to repeat it again at night.

Now that I'm off the narcotics, I can fall asleep at night...but can't stay that way. It's like the opposite of the first stages: fall asleep and wake up ridiculously early and not be able to fall asleep again, instead of not being able to fall asleep until 2am and stay in one position until noon.

So, like any insomniac, I've had to breathe a reluctant sigh of acceptance and find something to fill the time during those sleepless hours. Because my phone is on my pillow from the night before, I've taken to combing through the internet's supply of longform essays. Buzzfeed isn't usually known for their quality of writing — far from it, actually — but this time, they hit one out of the park.

This essay is called "I Had a Stroke at 33", and it's one of the most sobering things I've ever read. Really, it's a beautiful piece of work. The author couldn't remember anything during a period of her life and had to write things down in a journal, so the essay was culled from notes from her journal. It's very descriptive and personal, and yet there's this sense of detachment in every word as though she's cataloguing someone else's experiences. It kind of makes me wish I had written more things down during my injury, but whatever. That time has passed.

Also, you can imagine my delight once Longform finally released their app for iPhone instead of just giving it to iPad users. FINALLY.