{"id":1683,"date":"2023-07-17T11:07:51","date_gmt":"2023-07-17T11:07:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/?p=1683"},"modified":"2023-07-17T11:07:55","modified_gmt":"2023-07-17T11:07:55","slug":"falling-awake","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/falling-awake\/1683\/","title":{"rendered":"Falling Awake"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Sleep eluded me like a teddy in a claw machine, its softness always slipping from my grasp. My wife lay beside me, snoring contentedly – a buzzing wasp that I wanted to swat but didn\u2019t dare. She only got mad with me, sometimes for days, and I only got all hot and bothered from moving, and further from escaping consciousness. Instead, I just lay there, thinking about all the things I was dreading about tomorrow, and all the ways in which it was going to be even worse without a good night\u2019s sleep.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At work, I waded through treacle. Each sleepless night thickened the gloop that coated everything. Movement was slow and painful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

There was one meeting, or maybe it was several. They\u2019re all stuck together in my mind like melted sweets. I was looking out of the window, watching the clouds drift by and wishing I could nestle into one and let it carry me away. The voices in the room were as distant and undefined as those clouds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c\u2026 what\u2019s the position on that, Mark? Mark!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I shook my head. Pain rattled around my skull. The row of faces stared at me from the other side of the table, merging into one giant five-headed monster.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSorry, what?\u201d I might have managed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Marlborough account,\u201d the monster slurred. \u201cDo you have an update?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That was the jolt I needed to seek help. If this continued, I\u2019d lose my marriage and my job.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Walking into the insomnia support group was like climbing into a bed with crisp, lavender-scented sheets. Nerys, the group leader, spoke in a soft whisper. Her cardigan was duvet-cover floral.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHelp yourself to tea,\u201d she said, gesturing to a table, where I poured hot water over a teabag and it hit the mug with a comforting yawn. Neil, Helen, Meg and Steve introduced themselves whilst I stirred in the milk, and instead of inducing a headache, the ringing of metal against china soothed me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Soon we were sitting with steaming mugs in front of us, and we talked. Really talked. About what it\u2019s like. About feeling trapped, going round and round a track, never reaching a finish line, getting dizzier and weaker, the world whizzing by, shapeless.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These were the first three-dimensional people I\u2019d met in months. They had edges and their voices cut through the fog. I wanted to cling to them, these solid people in a blurry world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Nerys announced the end of the group, I jumped up to hug them all. I flung myself at Neil first, the biggest and strongest one, and closed my eyes in anticipation of his firm squeeze. I needed to feel the physical presence of their support.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But my arms flailed in the air. He was gone. They all were.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Had I fallen asleep or woken up? I couldn\u2019t tell. Maybe they had fallen asleep and left me alone in this in-between place?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I curled up on the floor. I\u2019d just wait here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m still here. I think.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sleep eluded me like a teddy in a claw machine, its softness always slipping from my grasp. My wife lay beside me, snoring contentedly – a buzzing wasp that I wanted to swat but didn\u2019t dare. She only got mad with me, sometimes for days, and I only got all hot and bothered from moving, and further from escaping consciousness. Instead, I just lay there, thinking about all the things I was dreading about tomorrow, and all the ways in which it was going to be even worse without a good night\u2019s sleep.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_10158782359051062_103813597863211":"","twitter_1225722811282530305_1225722811282530305":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[695,836],"tags":[858,857],"class_list":["post-1683","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-695","category-no-way-out","tag-awake","tag-falling"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbrNJE-r9","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1683","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1683"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1683\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1685,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1683\/revisions\/1685"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1683"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1683"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1683"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}