Do you remember being a little kid and wishing you would grow up faster? I do. I remember having that feeling at every major age of my life. When I was fourteen I wished I was sixteen and able to drive a car. When I turned sixteen I wanted to be eighteen, so I'd be taken seriously. When I hit eighteen I wanted nothing more than to be twenty-one and legal.
Well, now that I've finally reached the coveted twenty-one year mark and have been thrown full-fledged into adulthood, I've come to a realization. It's a certain realization that hits you when you least expect it. Here's what they don't tell you about being an adult: We are now subjected to being eternally tired.
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College students are especially effected by this horror. The gift of sleep is no longer something that's given to us willingly. We work, go to school, maintain social lives, and participate in extra curricular activities, but there's no time to be thoroughly acquainted with our mattresses. It's a travesty, honestly. I went from taking naps every day of my high school career to downing three cups of coffee in-between my front door and the bus stop.
It's like a hazing ritual for your psyche. THE WORST HAZING RITUAL.
PSA: Full-fledged delirium SUCKS.
But wait. Fear not! For if you treat the issue in the early stages of development, one can save themselves from enduring the plague of adulthood. It will hit you in stages, slowly at first, and then all at once. This is the dreaded journey:
1. You'll feel the need to blink furiously.
You may be casually sitting in class or working away, when all of a sudden you'll have to fight the urge to close your eyes. The notion will be involuntary. Your eyes will feel like deserts and sticky jelly at the same time. Thus triggers the exercises of the eye. The blinking may seem excessive, but never underestimate the preliminary form of defense.
2. You try to do anything to stay awake.
We dance, we sing, and we shake it out. Some people prefer to recite information to themselves to try to keep their brains active. Others pinch repeatedly or try to "rapid slap" themselves awake. But then some people, like me, consume inordinate amounts of caffeine to help curb the blow. However we try to fix it, we are always painfully aware of the next step.
3. Your scare the living daylights out of others.
It's a difficult thing to endure seeing someone visibly recoil at the sight of you, but perhaps you should have showered and changed out of that old, stained t-shirt. Everyone knows you in a rough patch your hair looks like it could have been plastered to your forehead. This stage is where the level of exhaustion skyrockets to its all time high and you accept the inevitable defeat.
4. You realize you're not going to make it.
There's never enough coffee in the world to remedy the loss of an ungodly amount of sleep. My veins could literally be funneling pure espresso towards my heart and my body would still refuse to shake off the infernal Zzzz's. Therefore we accept the terrible truth of our reality: All adults must be forever tortured with inadequate rest. It's a sad, sad truth. What I wouldn't give to be able to go back to being my four year old self and have two hour naps every afternoon.
