A Reason to Be Thankful

I couldn’t sleep.

No matter what I tried, the headaches wouldn’t let me sleep:

I hopped in bed early and stayed wide awake for hours.
I exercised beforehand and I still couldn’t do it.
I bought sleep masks and ear plugs but those didn’t help either.

I just…couldn’t…sleep.

So I’d walk around. Listen to some music. Lie on the couch. Stare at the wall.

There were plenty nights like that.

And even on the rare chance I fell asleep quickly, I’d be up again 2 hours later.

It was infuriating.

How could I not do something so simple? Why weren’t the pills making the headache go away? Why was I so angry at the smallest things?

I didn’t have an answer. So I tried to hide all of it. Normal me already comes across as emo enough.

But I couldn’t hide it. And it affected so many areas of my life.

People became an annoyance, I’d come home too tired to do anything, and I honestly wanted to quit my job.

My coworkers laughed when they saw me. They all thought I had another late night out. That I had a scuffle with my alarm clock.

And yeah, I laughed it off. But I wanted to be anywhere but there.

I didn’t care anymore. I just needed a break.

It’s not like I could do much anyway. I stared at my monitor a few hours. Played with some spreadsheets and looked busy. But that was it.

Of course a few people caught on. And even though they didn’t tell me outright, their tone told me what word they were really saying.

Imagine that. Being called lazy when you work a full-time job, have a full-time headache, and still manage to write the equivalent of a book online.

It was embarrassing. It was disrespectful. And in a way, it was comical.

But apparently that wasn’t enough.

No, it had to be rubbed in:

My maternal aunt and uncle both died within days of each other, during the week of Thanksgiving, and it left my family rattled for months.
The clear complexion I finally had regressed back to high school form out of nowhere.
An all-star who had just joined my favorite basketball team even snapped his leg five minutes into the season.

Pretty soon, it all felt too personal to be a string of unfortunate events…

It felt like I was under attack.

“How long?!”

“How long are You gonna let this happen?”

I can’t tell you how many times I prayed that.

God had done great things in my life before. But during that time, it felt like He abandoned me like everyone else.

I wrote numerous articles sharing my faith. Yet this was my reward? Being laughed at, mocked, and treated like dirt?

I wasn’t looking for fame. I wasn’t looking for money or revenge. I just wanted to sleep again.

I longed for the days when I rushed to work early and then wrote for hours afterward. I craved the feeling of a good night’s rest. And I nearly forgot how it felt to not have constant pressure in my head.

That was my life. For about a year, that was my life.

I wanted everything back that I had before. I wanted to be the person I was before.

But the month of July had other plans. That month was when it all peaked.

And even though past experience taught me better, I wanted to call it quits. I’m trying so hard not to be edgy here but that’s the truth, I did not want to be alive.

It hurt too much—to wake up and do the same thing every day.

And I wasn’t the only one affected. My loved ones could tell. Some coworkers could tell. Even strangers could tell. That’s what I hated the most.

I was used to all this by then—as bad as that sounds—but I knew they weren’t. So I tried to smile and act normal. But they saw right through it.

It got so bad that my old church friend had to help.

I’ve talked about him before, but he’s an older guy who encourages me and gives advice for stuff he shouldn’t even know.

Yeah, it’s weird but he’s always spot on. So I know he’s not making it up.

Anyway, during that particular time, he told me this:

“You are not insignificant.”

“You know what you are, and it is not insignificant.”

Sure, I listened to him then. But I shrugged it off once I walked away.

The only thing I “knew” was that I had a trashed life and a dead blog. So what was I supposed to do? Act tough and motivated till it was time to sleep again?

I had enough of people’s fortune cookie advice. I had enough of their pseudo-biblical mantras. I didn’t want to hear it.

But about a week or so later, his words were in my head again.

“You know what you are, and it is not insignificant.”

I guess they did help after all.

Because yeah, I felt worthless. But then I remembered I still had something valuable:

Hope.

Hope that what I was then was not what I would always be.

So you know what I did?

I persevered.

Yes, it still hurt but I knew it wouldn’t always hurt. I knew I’d be able to sleep again. I knew I’d be able to write again.

God doesn’t waste pain. And I knew He wouldn’t let me experience that for no reason.

So I looked ahead. Everything I did then focused on the future.