Today has been a trying day in a way the others haven’t yet so far. I’ve been tired all day. Not just foggy or feeling down, but physically exhausted. For whatever reason, I found myself laying awake in bed last night, the sounds of snores nearby apparent. No, not quite snores in the loud, obnoxious and log-sawing variety. The gentle breathing as a woman drifts off gently to sleep. For some of them, it’s the closest thing to serenity they are capable of.
At the crack of dawn this morning, I lay there still but awake, staring off at the ceiling of my bedroom. Aware but dazed. If I believed in them, I would say it was a close to an out of body experience as I’ve had. I couldn’t “see” myself, but I was aware that I wasn’t fully cognizant. It was a strange feeling and no matter how I laid or what I did, I couldn’t sleep.
I’ve had bouts with insomnia before, not sleeping for days on end and just staring blankly with eyelids half open yet refused to close and find relief. I was afraid that it was the same, returned in force. I’m still not sure if it is but after the day did its best to stretch into eternity, I find myself tired and feeling hopeful I’ll soon find rest.
Two big things made today go by a great deal quicker: exercise and inspiration. Keeping physically active not only kept my energy levels high enough to function, it also gave me an opportunity to do some high intensity activity that melts fat off the body and minutes off the clock. Which in turn fed my inspiration, which I poured into NaNoWriMo. I ended up more than double what my projected word count was. The novel isn’t even in the “diamond in the rough” stage so much as it is “someone took a shit in the mine and in the dark corn looks like gemstones.”
To say I’m out of practice at a writer implies I was ever decent at it. I wasn’t, and that’s not to say that I’m being exceedingly humble or even self-deprecating to be charming or some such rubbish. I was bad. I still am, but I now know that I am still willing to suck at something to get good at it. I’ve told myself that that much about myself hasn’t changed. Inside I still felt like the same old Herk, red on the inside and out, but when you reach a place where inertia takes over and you grow almost comfortable in your rut, you start to believe that little voice that tells you you can’t hack it.
I knew it was full of shit. November is about proving things to myself, but further more expecting things of myself. Setting expectations and goals and smashing them on all accounts. Quite a bit has changed since around Halloween when I would be staring off into space, pondering where my life was heading and if I even wanted it to go those directions while staring blankly at a Game Theory video.
I think that everyone goes through a bit of fluctuating hormones when they’re teenagers and high school pressure exacerbates it and makes you feel down or pessimistic, if not all around mentally drained. I’ve never really believed that I was depressed in the clinical sense of the word, and I didn’t use it to describe my “days of feeling blue” because in some deep part of me I knew I would get over it. That same mentality has been what kept me sane, I believe. The days when I felt down or upset about nothing. I don’t mean small things that shouldn’t have bothered me, I mean literally nothing. It was the nothing that was killing me inside. I was devoid of change. Devoid of growth. Growth is what makes us human, and losing that growth and change I wasn’t just just becoming inert, I was dying.I didn’t exist.
For well over a month I wasn’t sure I was even in the world in more. I was going through my days listless; I never cared how or when my nights ended up. Or worse, where, or whom I was with. I was never one for drugs or anything hard, nor am I implying I was partying my nights away. I was simply just “along for the ride” in my own life. I wasting away inside and though I’m tired now, #NoNothingNovember has left me feeling refreshed. I am doing things and moving forward and I’ve learned something about myself. I was right all along. I did have it within me all along. All I needed was someone to give me a standard to live upto.
You see, Strangelove’s month wasn’t about setting strict rules or regulations to handhold me like a child. No, it was something much more simple than that. Something primal. I needed something to conquer. A challenge to overcome. The difficulty set high, as the person holding me accountable was the one who had let me slip into the depths and wallow for so long: myself. I knew that if I did play the game, the referee would be biased against me from the outset and would be looking to trip me up.
I’m a prideful man. Not obnoxious or narcissistic necessarily, though others may say otherwise, but I do have pride. I try to carry myself with enough spine and regal that I can sleep at night. Pride, and competitiveness. I am, like all men, descended from winners. The genetic conquerors. Progeny of Kings and Tyrants alike. The important part is that within me, there is a capacity to bust my ass when I want to win. There’s nothing I hate worse than losing.
The beauty of #NoNothingNovember is that Strangelove found a way to set a challenge that I had no choice but to rise and meet, because the challenge is a competition with myself. It has been said that it is always “me vs. myself” in everything I do, and in some way I’ve always known it, but the past week has began the first steps to truly internalizing it. Yes, I know that it’s true, but soon I will understand it. That’s the idea anyway.
I got quite a bit of writing and exercising done today, but I believe that tomorrow will be an even bigger opportunity to win or fail. I’ve set a goal to have my first post unrelated to #NoNothingNovember up tomorrow, and it’s one I hope you’ll all enjoy.
Still have a problem with catching myself scrolling during bathroom breaks for a minute or two, so I’ll knock a few points off for that but other than that I was close to on schedule save for losing track of time reading and ran over by about 10 minutes when I was supposed to be reading sidebar material instead of ASOIAF. With that said, today’s scores are
1) Foregoing of mindless media consumption. 8/10
2) Having a clear daily plan and deadline goals to meet. 9.5/10
3) Exercise and write everyday. Period. 10/10
Daily Total: 27/30
Yesterday’s Total: 16/30
Total To Date: 149/180
Legends of Men 