Welcome to freshman year. If you’re beginning experience in the wild, weird, wonderful world of Wesleyan is anything like mine, expect the following things to happen:
You will make close friends in September that you never talk to in October. You will find yourself wandering down Fountain Avenue with a dozen people you just met. You will develop a love-hate relationship with jungle juice, and you will develop a hate-hate relationship with Dubra. You will make bad decisions, you will eat brunch, and you will move on with your life. You will stay up until 5 a.m. doing absolutely nothing, it will feel fantastic, and you will feel blissfully content with your place in the world.
Eventually, I settled down some, found my true friend group, and developed something of a routine, both for work and otherwise. It was never again as spontaneous and open and full of possibility as it was when I first got here, but it was comfortably effortless. Thank God for boundless freshman enthusiasm, because the limitless, no-holds-barred fun that is your first month of college would be just exhausting without it. After all, you shouldn’t be able to stay up until 5 a.m. doing absolutely nothing and feel fantastic. It’s not sustainable.
But that’s what I did—in September and October and all the way through this summer.
Hand to God, I have never had a cup of coffee. I have a half-joking fear of caffeine, avoiding the stuff at all costs so as not to fuel an already unhealthy habit; I can stay up until all hours of the night just fine without any sort of performance enhancement. I stay up too late, I sleep too little, and I drift through my day drowsy, but at night the tiredness subsides, or at least it seems to. Mentally, emotionally, I still feel it, but I find myself able to stay up for hours-on-end like it was nothing. I finally have something resembling energy only after the sun has already set, but using it just hurts me more in the long run.
Most of you will learn this lesson quickly: just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should. Again, pay particular heed to that advice when it comes to Dubra. I did, and my senses of taste and self-respect have thanked me endlessly for it. However, my aversion to sleep lingered past freshman year. Shortly thereafter, Adam Mansbach’s succinct, brilliant “Go the Fuck to Sleep” went viral, spawning an iconic audiobook by Samuel L. Jackson and an unofficial reading by Werner Herzog that officially gave me nightmares. It’s a hilarious story of exasperation and desperation, the explicit and natural response to rampant immaturity. I identified with the subject rather than the speaker, except it’s less comic and more pathetic when you imagine the subject is in college. It was probably 3 a.m. when I first stumbled upon this.
If you don’t go the fuck to sleep, you fuck up. Sophomore year, I exhausted myself so much I got mono the not-fun way. I worked past sunrise and laughed at myself with a mix of pity and pride. By the time I was a junior, I recognized that my stressful lifestyle was driving away the people I cared about, but I had already overburdened myself with a schedule that fit my awful hours. Living in the early hours of the morning, a practice first derived from joy and discovery, was now a mix of resignation and despair. It was all still effortless in a way, but not strictly by the dictionary definition; I simply did not have the strength to put forth any effort to change.
On August 11, 2013, I woke up at 10 a.m. and promptly hit the snooze button. As per usual, I repeated this act again and again, but on the third try my half-asleep swipe turned off the alarm. When I awoke in a panic to the sound of a silent room, it was 12:04. I’d overslept an 11:48 train to meet my 81-year old grandmother. She does not carry a cell, and she was forced to locate a pay phone in 2013 (turns out they still exist) just to make sure I hadn’t flat left her.
In a fit of embarrassment and self-hatred, I finally vowed to change. It comes in fits and starts; I’ve quit the snooze button cold turkey, though I will admit I am still finishing up this article in the wee hours of the morning. Unlike in previous years, however, I will be getting to bed in time to heed Ted Mosby’s advice: Nothing good happens after 2 a.m.
Personally, I’m not big on regrets. It took me an unpardonable amount of time and stress and drama for me to start righting my sleep issue, but all that has led me to a moment of clarity, one in which I finally had the capacity to change. Maybe it’s just a little victory thus far, but it’s something, and somethings add up.
So don’t worry about the things you’re about to do—in the moment or thereafter. Meet new people by the scores. Drink crappy alcohol before you know better. Make your bad decisions, eat your brunch, and move on with your life. Stay up until 5 a.m. doing absolutely nothing. It really does feel fantastic, and nothing can take that moment away from you.
But you can’t repeat it forever. Eventually you stop being a freshman and start being just a college student. Your momentum ceases. Your enthusiasm wanes. You get burnt out. And that’s all okay if you let it be okay. Sure, you can power through and feel miserable in the morning. On the other hand, there’s only one surefire way to make yourself feel alive again. I’ve got two words for you, kid: fucking sleep!