While You Were Sleeping

sleepless

GIF by Tsholanang Motuba

At approximately 3 a.m. every morning, I find myself painfully awake. I lie there, with my senses heightened and my mind extremely alert, trying to barter with the Sandman in the hopes that I will finally be able to close my eyes. But I don’t. It’s as if I am constantly on a natural caffeine high; buzzing with thoughts of what could have been – many a dream deferred.

More than anything, I find myself gripped by nostalgia. To quote a line from the Woody Allen film Midnight in Paris: “Nostalgia is the denial of a painful present.” I’ve clutched on to this quote like a transitional toy since I first heard it. How could a sentence so simple bear such complex truth?

Lately, I have been scrolling through music videos that I love from the 80s, 90s and early aughts. I study each one closely, hoping to make a new discovery. I drown myself in old school R&B and Hip-Hop playlists (I didn’t even know heartbreak back in ’95). Although comprising the same songs, each playlist arrangement incites a different feeling – a different kind of peace and simultaneous longing.

I stomp around my room performing all the routines to the dance breaks that moved me as a kid (shout out to Miss Janet’s Velvet Rope Tour and our beloved Britney “Born To Make You Happy” Spears). Pedantic about every step, some moves are harder to recall. I feel betrayed by my foggy brain. I think to myself, “It’s happening. I am forgetting.”

In a life filled with fleeting moments, all we have are our memories. They are my safe place. I cling to every John Hughes movie made and every lyric belted by the late and great Miss Whitney Houston. I hang on to every sweet note sung by Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music. I don’t want to forget the empowerment I got from the outfits worn by En Vogue in their “Don’t Let Go (Love)” video or a time where videos were as understated as Natalie Imbruglia’s, “Torn”.

large-2 via https://weheartit.com/entry/214518387

The pain of the present can feel insurmountable at times. It is symbolic of all the emotions we’ve felt, bonds we’ve broken, loves we’ve lost and the trials we’ve endured. At times, it is doused in regret. It serves as a reminder of how excruciatingly inevitable and rapid change is. We simply can’t control everything.

All one can do is look at the past with immense gratitude and be excited about the prospect of newness.

THE BEFITTING ROOM