Finals have just ended. I’m feeling relieved, tired, and ready to be home. I am on an evening flight back to Kansas, sitting next to an old man with crinkly eyes and Sperry shoes. After a few minutes of light chatter, exhaustion has overtaken all of my conversational efforts. I watch as the sun goes down -- a fight of oranges and pinks against a persistent blue that refuses to accept night is to come. But, the color clash only tires me out more, and I turn away as sleep comes. I am just about to doze off and I feel my eyelids flutter -- and then I remember. I jolt awake and my eyes dart around the room, wondering if anyone noticed. I know what is happening.
I am startled awake because I would rather the other passengers not think of me as that creepy girl with the white eyes. Yes, the secrets out. Not that my family, friends, and anyone who I’ve had a sleepover with or taken a nap around doesn’t already know. I am one of those strange, looks dead-but-still-breathing open-eyed sleepers. And ugh, wow do I want to sleep. I turn my head towards the window and let my long hair serve as an invisibility cloak. Finally, I can rest.
It has been this way as long as I can remember. As a child, my father would check on me every night before he went to bed, hours after I had been tucked in and was supposed to be asleep. And every single night, there would be a brief moment where he thought we made eye contact, or that maybe I had passed away. I have woken up a few times with his head close to mine, peering at my face and listening for an exhale to decide whether I was asleep and still breathing. Sometimes I would pretend to be asleep when he checked on me -- I realize now that my eyes being closed were a dead giveaway. But cut me some slack: it’s hard to fake sleeping with your eyes open.
Nowadays, I only sleep that way when I am really exhausted. But still, the habit lies amongst my deepest insecurities. It seems unnatural to me, that someone can appear to be awake during a time set apart simply for rest. But it is also something that I know I cannot change, and deep down I know I get my best sleep on the open-eye nights.
It happens to the best of us, the worst of us, but mainly, to very few of us. So next time you see the flutter of the eyelids a post final, exhausted college kid next to you on the airplane or just an open-eyer anywhere else, remember to cut them some slack: they cannot control it.
