03:45, No Sleep; or, BS Tries to Kick the Bean

An update regarding the thrilling adventure of my addiction to caffeine: today is my fourth day with no coffee, and I'm not dead. I decided last week that the extended holiday weekend, free of rehearsals and morning shifts at the library, would be the ideal time to cut out coffee entirely, limiting my caffeine intake to tea, and even drinking that no more than twice daily.

It went pretty much as expected.

I functioned more or less normally on Saturday--got up before noon to see Super 8 with a friend, walked the entire 2.5 miles home, then took a nap, did laundry, and had Paula over for movie-watching-and-YouTubing times. Sunday I slept in, went to a friend's place, and then--

How? How is it even possible that, just as I am giving up caffeine, I should be hit with a severe bout of anxiety-driven insomnia? No lie, I went to bed Sunday night (Monday morning) after the sun had risen, and then again last night, when I lay in bed until about 2:45, thinking, "Good grief, why am I not asleep?!" It really is the most irritating thing to be lying in one's wonderfully soft bed, one's apartment for once hovering at a comfortable ambient temperature, no noise apart from the distant dull thud of neighborhood children (teenagers?) setting off explosives in celebration of our nation's independence, and to not be able to sleep. This is particularly true when one has to be at work by 9 the next morning. The dreams are back, too, and I'm not sure what that means.

It's understandable, I suppose, considering that I'm under a bit of stress right now, but it's nothing compared to Autumn Quarter (Hansel and Gretel in three weeks!) or, for that matter, Spring Quarter (Topics and piano exam and no time for sleep!), but after the relative quiet of my convalescence following wisdom teeth extraction, it's probably the contrast that's getting to me. Finances are a major concert at the moment--obviously I'll pull through, but it does get tiring after a while to live from one (minuscule) paycheck to the next. I lay awake at night sometimes worrying about the year to come--between rent, voice lessons, paying on school loans, budgeting for groceries, and traveling for auditions, I worry that I will never be financially stable. This worries me primarily because I would like to be able to travel while I'm still unattached and young enough to enjoy myself, and because I would, despite my aversion to achieving the White Anglo-Saxon Protestant goal of a husband and a house and 2.5 children, someday like to own property--ideally a house with a library, because can you imagine me owning a home without a library? So I lay awake thinking, How am I going to make the amount of money I need to survive? and What will I have to sacrifice to do that? It's a terrifying prospect, and one that carries all the weight of grown-upitude, and I don't like it.

But I'm functioning reasonably well for someone with a fairly serious dependence on coffee who has recently given up said substance for a short time. The purpose of this abstention is not, obviously, to give up coffee forever and completely, but instead to manipulate my body/brain, through forced withdrawal from a chemical to which it has become at least somewhat desensitized, into having a greater reaction to less of said chemical at some point in the future, and thereby to save myself some money, because I am a musician/student (and therefore poor) and also, in at least one way, stereotypically Dutch-American (and therefore cheap). And, my, that was a lot of words, wasn't it?

The headaches haven't been nearly as severe as I had expected, which is a pleasant surprise--although yesterday I did have one which settled behind my eyes and lasted all day, even through a lengthy afternoon nap, increased water intake, and some painkillers (look, everyone! I've just used an Oxford comma without realizing it!). It started out dull and irritating and grew significantly exacerbated in part, I'm sure, by the most comically oversized dead raccoon which lay rotting on the side of the row near the bus stop where I finally caught the 65 after deciding not to walk the remaining mile and a half home (I had already walked a mile before coming to that decision). And that raccoon, you guys. It was bigger than a nine-month old baby, or the largest pug I have ever seen, maybe even the size of a bear cub. I almost laughed, but it smelled so terrible that I just stood there waiting for the bus and thinking, Please don't let the wind shift, please don't let the wind shift.

It's just noon and I've already reached my self-imposed daily limit of two cups of caffeinated tea. There is a headache beginning to creep in behind my left eye, more dull and irritating than sharp and throbbing. At some point, I should eat something--there's still that bit of spaghetti squash in the refrigerator at home. None of this forgetting-to-eat business these days, not when I'm under stress and limiting access to addictive substances.