Nine months ago, I read Ottessa Moshfegh’s My Year of Rest and Relaxation. Six months ago, I had my first run-in with chronic insomnia. This past month, I alternated between struggling to sleep for hours and sleeping for days on end. Last week, I got a prescription for a sleeping pill. I haven’t used it yet.
I would like a year of rest and relaxation. I don’t mean a year of vacations, traveling to see family, and working through my TBR in a cozy coffee shop somewhere. But that sounds fantastic, doesn’t it? I mean, I would like to go under for a year, like Moshfegh’s latest heroine.
Of course, I don’t actually want this. No one does. The problem is that I’m almost halfway through my third year of college, and my dedication to school is deteriorating every semester. I’m well aware that the path I’m on trails off into confusion somewhere after I graduate, but I have no plans for another, better path. At the same time, I am interested in everything (being a freelance writer, traveling, getting a PhD in economics, working in publishing, etc.) and nothing. I imagine there are a lot of other college students who would love to press ‘pause’ until they can figure out what they want to do. Universities like A&M are full of overworked twenty-somethings who desperately need a break, career counseling, and time more than anything else.
When I read My Year of Rest and Relaxation, I thought the main character was disturbingly relatable. She is also (frankly) a major b*tch. She treats her only friend (Reva) like crap, and spends many pages lamenting to the reader about everyone’s stupidity, including Reva, her employer, her family, and herself. And yet, of all things, her desire to sedate herself for a year makes her someone we can understand and empathize with. If you could detach from your real-world life for an entire year with no repercussions, wouldn’t you? Even if it was just to sleep, or plan out your career, or read, wouldn’t you?
Since I’ve been struggling with insomnia over the last few months, I can’t tell you how much I crave sleep. But it’s not just the desire to wake up for class and feel well-rested. It’s the desire to turn off my brain. Once a day, we all get to stop worrying about exam scores and holiday plans and the fact that we haven’t been to the grocery store in two weeks. Hopefully, you get a full eight hours of not worrying. The thing is, giving your brain a break is just as important as resting your body. Now that I’m almost halfway through junior year, sometimes I wish I could do the same with classes. It’s like I just need a semester, or maybe a year, to figure out where I’m headed and what the heck I want to do.
My life is going surprisingly well right now, and I still feel this. I’m hoping to study abroad next semester; I’m going to concerts, and I’m seeing friends and family more than ever. But I would kill to have a year to figure stuff out. Even when it feels like the universe is firmly in my corner, something about being in college makes time feel like it is passing way, way, WAY too quickly. Every year we get closer to the job market, and that sinking feeling comes in – that feeling that if you pick the wrong path there’s no going back, ever. I think it’s important to remind ourselves that careers change, and so do lives. If I want to drop everything and join the circus tomorrow, I can. If I want to write a book, or fly to Portugal, or apply for my master’s, I can do that too. We get lots and lots of second and third chances. Pressing pause for a year sounds really nice sometimes, but I’ll probably be okay figuring it out as I go.