Broken Sleep

It is 4:25 AM as I start to write this. I cannot sleep any longer, for my sleep is broken.

This broken sleep is not new to me. I find myself experiencing it fairly often. I get this broken sleep every time I go to some event that I have either been looking forward to for a long time, or that I had an amazingly fun time at.

Last night was both.

My sleep is broken. I flit in and out of reality. My dreams, as always, are a perfect replay of the event. Usually "the event" is one thing, generally a ball or a conference or a swing dance. But this night it is the entire past 24 hours.

Yesterday's 5:00 AM waking, watching the sunrise, talking to my freshmen friends over facebook chat, driving to Moscow with my windows down and music blaring (Chicago is one of the best bands in the world), talking to Josiah, Cristina, and Seth at the tea time, wondering why in the world I was so hyper (for I have never in my life felt like that. Like I'm so incredibly blessed and happy that I am going to explode any second!), convocation talks, going out to lunch with Cristina and Abbie, My future brother in law fixing my car's flat tire, shopping for fruit for the swing dance with Liz, buying my first books for my classes, making dinner with Abbie for Matt and her brother Jordan, racing back through dusty streets to help set up for the swing dance, last minute changes, TORNADO WARNING, STORM WARNING, moving everything inside before the rain and wind hits, giant gusts of winds blowing metal chairs over and ripping table clothes off their respective places, dancing with Robert, Jordan, Jonathan, Josiah, Kenny, Jeremiah, Jay, and Joseph (haha, starting to see a pattern?), dancing in the rain, singing in the rain, watching my friends whirling and twirling around the dance floor, laughing with my sister and her husband, cleaning up after the dance, driving home with the lightning flashing all around my car and wishing desperately that I could hear the rolls of thunder, sitting on the edge of the sidewalk at home in my dress and watching the clouds, and this whole time feeling so happy that I don't know how to handle it.

You wouldn't think that it is possible to relive all that in two hours, would you? Trust me; its possible. Especially the parts about the swing dance since that was the most recent thing. In my sleep, I dream half awake half asleep that I am at the dance again, only I'm so tired that I cannot stand up. I sit on the stairs of the 1912 center, watching everyone dancing, and still feeling that incredibly happy feeling and not caring that I can't stand. I surface slightly from the dream and am conscious that I'm sitting up in bed, talking to myself, and try to tell myself to go back to sleep. I refluff the pillow and lay back down. Two minutes later I resurface again to find myself sitting up again, talking to the wall this time.

This is how it goes when I sleep my broken sleep. I've been doing this half awake half asleep resurfacing and submerging again for the past two hours, and finally, frustrated with myself and wide awake now, I've come here to write. Writing clears my head, and maybe my head is just filled with far too much joy from yesterday. If I write it down, maybe I'll sleep better when I'm finished.

I don't think yesterday could have been more perfect. I mean, come on! Sunrise, hyper with joy, random flat tires and brothers in law right there to fix it for me, sitting with my classmates, shopping with my sister, wind, rain, lightning, thunder, dancing, joy, and always God's presence in everything. Is it possible for school to have started on a more perfect day? I submit that it is not.