“When a man is asleep, he has in a circle round him the chain of the hours, the sequence of the years, the order of the heavenly host. Instinctively, when he awakes, he looks to these, and in an instant reads off his own position on the earth’s surface and the amount of time that has elapsed during his slumbers; but this ordered procession is apt to grow confused, and to break its ranks.”
I’ve been re-reading Swann’s Way, and it struck me when I read this passage of just how profoundly confused meth made me. Not just not knowing things like how long I had been asleep, or if I had paid bills, or walked my dogs, or where I woke up, or who might be in my house, but my place on earth, in time.
I was always late (sometimes late calling in sick), always behind, leaving things everywhere, emailing the wrong people the wrong things (late). The paranoia didn’t help my nerves, but it was more than that. I had no sense of time or place even off meth for a few weeks. Sleep only helped so much, because nothing was ever right when I awoke. There was never enough time. (Until I got my first bump, and time froze in fast-forward.)
Sleep is so fundamental to the human experience (at least this human’s experience). So are sunlight, and fresh air…. And I was something like a meth vampire for a couple of years.
It has been so long since I woke up in a panic. Or cried on my way to work. Or yelled at my dogs because they were getting in my way because I was running around the house like a crazy person…. Because I was a crazy person.
I love waking up today. I always know where I am, because I’m always where I’m supposed to be.