|
 Because complaining about stuff shouldn't be limited to the elderly |
| No matter what anyone says, I'm not scared of the dark |
| Wednesday, January 25, 2006 |
I dunno if this has me coming off as a total weenie, but I've found for whatever reason, I just seem to fall asleep better with the lights on. No, I'm not afraid of the boogie man or monsters under the bed (I check before I go to sleep and it's usually clear), but sleeping with the lights one appears to be a habit I've developed lately that I just can't shake.
It started about 18 months ago when I got LASIK. After years of tripping on cracks; running into walls; and accidentally asking out men, I decided to take the plunge and shed my dependency of glasses. After months of research, I had the procedure done with more than satisfactory results (by the way: I thumbed through a photo album of girls I date--good lord, if I coulda seen back then, I'd probably still be a virgin).
One of the side effects of the procedure was extreme sensitivity to light. Since I already shrieked in sunlight like Dracula, this fallout proved to be even more painful to me. Driving at night bordered on impossible thanks to oncoming cars and rude drivers who refused to turn their high beams down (although a friend later convinced me that a car I was screaming at was merely driving with its parking lights on).
Complicating things even further (and creating even more exposition for you to read), this was back when I used to reside inside what many affectionately refer to as The Hole. Although not located at your local penitentiary, The Hole has many similarities with its disciplinary namesake. The Hole was a bedroom in my mom's house that had no windows of any kind. When the door was closed, not a single drop of light entered it. In fact, without the assistance of a clock, one residing within The Hole wouldn't be able to tell is the meridiem was ante or post.
The ideal room for someone who is light-sensitive, you say? No so quick. While residing in total darkness was a wonderful pleasure to my tender winkers, leaving the total darkness is a completely different matter (and I had to come out: Domino's simply refused to deliver to a place called The Hole). Exiting my dark world to a place completely saturated in light was a tremendous shock to my eyes--especially after I woke up. I could feel the retinas virtually burning from the intensity of the lit, Real World. The shifts in illumination caused me incredible headaches and moments of incoherency. Many times, I would imitate Punxsutawney Phil and race back into my dark world, indicating six more weeks of winter.
But my pain wasn't limited to exiting The Hole. When I woke up (usually mid-afternoon) and turned on a light, the pain unleashed itself upon me. Since there are very few things I could do in the dark to entertain myself, I needed to come up with a solution. Clearly I could not live in a world with extreme changes of light intensity. And since all my plans to block out the sun failed, I needed to come up with another way to lessen the gap in illumination--and that brings me back to what I started to say some eight paragraphs ago.
Instead of shutting down the light out there, I decided to bring the light into The Hole all the time (I guess you could say I saw the light--HAR-HAR-HAR). Mother clearly expressed her unhappiness with me putting a hole in her wall for a window (apparently she remembered the failed birdhouse I attempted to build in seventh grade), so I opted for artificial light. I figured since I wasn't paying the electrical bill, why not "think outside the box" and sleep with the lights on (take that you anti-window making, birdhouse remembering, life-giver!).
The first few nights were kinda awkward. Part of it was my conscious feeling guilty about wasting electricity, but I think the bigger problem was trying to fall asleep while 100 watt florescent lights were shining in my face. Despite my difficulty succumbing to sleep, the wake-up process was flawless. No pain when I turned on the lights because, well, the lights were already on. There was no adjustment period because my pupils never fully expanded in the well-lit room (for those of you who don't know, yes--your pupils do dilate when your eyes are closed--that's why your eyes need to adjust when you wake up in the morning).
Leaving The Hole was also close to problemless. Sure, that big bright yellow thing hung in the sky and caused me great anguish, but I felt significantly less anguish. Plus, I didn't need to put on my sunglasses to sit at the breakfast table like before (for the first time in months, no one suspect me of combating a hangover).
It took an adjustment, but after a couple weeks or so, the lights became an afterthought to me: I was able to drift off into sleep as if they weren't ever there. My family thought it was weird that a person who shunned light as much as I did could sleep with the lights on, but it really was no problem. All I had to do is close my eyes. Sure, I could see some light through my eyelids, but it was a small price to pay for a pain-free morning (well, optical pain).
Which brings me to today. I have long since moved out of my folk's house. The Hole is a distant memory and I have sleep in many other windowed rooms. I no longer hafta cope with the pain of a light-free room. Yet sometimes, some nights, when I just can't fall asleep, I turn on the light. I could be tossing and turning for hours, unable to relax and drift off to la-la land...I'll reach over and turn on the light and *presto* in a matter of moments, I'm off to a place where lightsabers really do exist and the fate of the galaxy rests on my Jedi skills.
I swear I'm not a weenie--it's just reassuring. Kinda like my Blanky and Teddy Bear.
© 2006 siknerd.com
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