Asleep

I’ve been reading Perks in the past five days and I couldn’t get why Charlie liked the song Asleep so much. I thought it was one of the “okay” songs of the Smiths. And it almost always drove me to sleep whenever I listened to it.

Tonight, I finally listened to what Charlie had been hearing with the song.

I was very upset about many things tonight. It was the kind of upset that I had four years ago when I felt like my life has become one big mess of wrong decisions after another and I just wanted to start with a clean slate somewhere (surprise, I’ve been feeling this way all this time, friends in real life). If you know the song Boston by Augustana, I just felt that way. I guess I’m a walking sad song in the past few days, that one you would listen to while driving and the concrete road is glistening wet with the rain and the yellow street lights working cinematically together. I’m sorry, that’s the best way I can describe it.

So I went to sleep while reading page 178 of Perks.

I woke up 3 hours later, and everything felt a little better. I played Asleep, and Morrissey was singing these words

Deep in the cell of my heart 
I really want to go 
There is another world 
There is a better world
Well, there must be

I know he was referring to suicide, but to me, that better world is when I close my eyes and shut the world outside for a couple of hours. It’s not escaping. It’s simply going to bed because the world and its cruel forces has worn me out.

Sing me to sleep 
I’m tired and I 
I want to go to bed 

I guess that’s what people my age need to do when we’re upset - stop dramatizing everything into a sad, sappy scene from a movie or a line from a song, go to bed and get some sleep.

It sounds simplistic, but our young restless spirits could use some rest right now.

Good night.

—

PS. On an unrelated note, I think I’m past the appropriate reading age for Perks. Sometimes I just don’t buy how Charlie reacts to situations (like crying all of a sudden over the little things). He even writes and thinks like a girl! But then I realize he’s a very emotionally unstable person who does drugs, and exists in a very difficult and awkward time in any person’s life. Being an average person with average problems, I can’t pass judgement that his character is a bit too messed up to be true. Charlie is entitled to the feelings I’m pretty sure I never had when I was his age. Still, I believe Chbosky could have made this character cry a little less throughout the book.