Drew Petriello and Sleep have a rivalry of sorts
It's more akin to a rivalry between friends embroiled in a heated Super Smash Brothers tournament than a down and dirty, knuckle-dragging sibling rivalry.
It's a lighthearted rivalry. With lots of smack-talk, but no hurt feelings.
Or at least, Drew and Sleep don't reveal hurt feelings to each other. And when they do, it's in that disguised jokey way where one might suspect the other of confiding some deep, nasty truth, but it's better if you move on and don't address it.
I’m told photos of cute things sleeping will get my blog more views. Is it working?
I can't tell you how Sleep feels, but I can tell you that Drew is somewhat traumatized by the way Sleep has treated him. He keeps this to himself because he doesn't want to upset their relationship. They have a pretty decent thing going on most of the time.
Sleep is that clingy friend who needs to hang out all the time. This annoys Drew, but he likes Sleep, feels good when he's around Sleep, so what the hell.
But like that clingy friend, Sleep has a tendency to get caustic when its quota of friendship hasn't been met. Should Drew try and get out of their hangouts early, Sleep has a way of making Drew feel really bad and guilty about not having hung out long enough. If he's with Sleep for less than eight hours each night, you can bet that the Great Sulk Sleep throws will leave Drew in a miserable fog for the day to come.
But, like good friends, they make up each night, and Drew relents to another hangout. After all, Drew likes having Sleep around.
Although, for how clingy Sleep is, it sure is unreliable. It's not just a clingy friend who needs to hang out all the time or else they'll make you feel bad about it, no — Sleep is that friend who makes plans and then shows up two hours later, shrugging, muttering something about getting stuck in traffic or actually this was the right time all along, you're the crazy one for thinking we made plans at nine, clearly, the plans were for eleven, and even though when you show Sleep the chain of text messages Sleep will look at the hard proof and go "Whaaat, no that can't be right," before moving right along and proceeding with the plans for the evening.
Drew feels like he can't say "no" to Sleep.
Drew wonders if this is a healthy relationship, if this really is just a petty rivalry between friends or if it's something... well, let's bring out the great big "a" word: Abusive.
The abuser frequently doesn't know that they are, nor does the abused.
But really, Drew — the way Sleep makes you feel like such shit for cutting your hangouts short by a couple hours — Jesus, it's like a toddler throwing a fit over a knocked-over train set. We were together for five hours — that's a lot of time, Sleep, what difference does a couple more make?
I take back what I said earlier. Sleep makes its hurt feelings loud and clear, but Drew has this tendency to rationalize things away. Really, Drew's determined aloofness is almost impressive.
But it does get to Drew. And what really gets to him is total disregard Sleep has for Drew's plans. Drew dutifully notifies sleep about his plans, about his efforts to get up early and get to work — after all, he is a young writer and needs to put in time when he can — and when he texts with Sleep in the light of day, Sleep is all: "Oh yeah, uh huh, sure man, whatever man. Up by five? Asleep by nine? Yeah. Yeah. Totally. I gotchu dude. I'll move a few things around. I got you."
And then it's just like before: when nine rolls around, Sleep is nowhere to be seen until it strolls in fashionably late — "I thought we agreed on eleven?"
And when Drew's pre-notified scheduled end of the hangout time rolls around, that's when Sleep's guilt-tripping and fussing and pleading kicks into high gear: "I know the alarm just went off, but get back here — we were in the middle of an awesome dream! This one was a cool plotline about your college professor retiring so he can take care of his leeches — look at these leeches! These are adorable dream leeches! You don't want to let these go!"
And Drew is only so strong.
Which is to say: not strong at all.
There are times he's able to get away before Sleep is able to convince him to stick around, but other times, Drew shakes his head, wonders what the hell he was thinking as he slinks back to his old buddy Sleep, asking after those leeches — will they play an important role in the dream's plotline? He's gotta know!
This isn't new to his adult life. Drew's loggerheaded relationship with Sleep goes back to childhood.
You see, Sleep and Drew were both big scaredy cats as kids
In elementary school, it'd be a school night. Drew'd be in bed by his usual time — nine o'clock! — but... but there was... the Fear.
The Fear kept Sleep away. Sleep was too scared to hang out with Drew when the Fear was there.
Every settling crackle of the house, gust of wind, scratch of a branch, popping of a bedspring — each of these was like a bullwhip lashed at Sleep, fending it off for several more minutes.
Drew wasn't afraid of monsters under the bed or of the dark, concealing shadows infecting the house. Please, he's always been more realistic and grounded than that.
Drew was afraid of someone breaking into the Petriello house and murdering them all.
Much more reasonable.
This could possibly be pinned on the fact that Drew's parents — especially his dad — really enjoyed police procedurals like Law and Order and CSI, but I highly doubt that. By the age these fears were occurring, he was old enough to distinguish the fictional world from the real. There must be some other underlying cause for his paranoia that someone was going to hurt him, his family in the night, but I'm sitting here with his brain popped open and his memories unfolded before me like the world's most boring origami, but I can't seem to find any reasonable source of the paranoia.
He doesn't suffer from such silliness now.
But every now and then, if Jinny's out of the house and he hasn't heard from her in several hours and can't find a trace of her being active online recently, he is overcome by an absolute certainty that her car has been t-boned on the driver's side and her beautiful body is smashed to paste in the wreckage of her Toyota, or she's been plucked off the street and having her toe bones turned into toothpicks by a deranged cannibal murderer right this very second! Oh god text her, Drew, just get a tiny little response! Anything! Anything! Oh my god, she's been shivved by a meth addict, hasn't she? Oh god, what if the authorities find her body and don't know who to call? How will I find out? How will I — oh. She's responded. Phew, close one.
As with Sleep, Drew has a similarly adversarial (read: possibly abusive) relationship with Imagination, you see.
Oh sure, Imagination can make Drew believe with absolute certainty any number of horrors that Jinny may be suffering, but when he's trying to come up with an idea for a creative project that's simple and ongoing and will help him build an audience or something, I dunno, I'm just spitballing here, suddenly it's nowhere to be found.
Geez. You're more unreliable than Sleep. At least Sleep is guaranteed to show up. Imagination sometimes just doesn't show, or worse, likes to be the center of attention when least wanted. Like, say, when Drew is hoping for an early evening hangout with Sleep, but then Imagination keeps telling Sleep that hey man, could you give us a few more minutes? Drew and I are going to have some good old fashioned bonding turning over the same four thoughts about how the hell Joe Biden is the Democratic nominee. Imagination knows you're never going to get into an actual argument with anyone about Joe Biden or whatever, you're too chickenshit about conflict to get into an actual argument, but Imagination really really wants Drew to go over the exact same series of arguments more times than Charles Manson was dropped on his head as a baby.
Drew suspects Sleep and Imagination are in cahoots. He suspects that they're conspiring. He suspects that they're not really his friends at all and just like to cause Drew pain.
This, however, is a lack of empathy on Drew's part. He isn't looking at things from their perspective. What must it feel like to be in Imagination's shoes? Or Sleep's?
Imagination has passion, is cursed by an obsessive compulsion. Things really excite Imagination. Is it really so bad that Imagination wants to share those with Drew?
As for Imagination's unreliablity, well, isn't that because Imagination is afraid? Yes... yes... that blasé standoffishness... it really all comes down to fear, doesn't it, Imagination? That you'll be judged? That you won't be able to perform? You can't fail if you don't try at all.
Poor scared Imagination.
And Drew yells at it so, so angrily sometimes. That scares Imagination more... he just demands so much of it! It's trying its best, but please, stop yelling at me, I can't... I don't like being yelled at. Please... no... Drew, why do you have to be so mean to me?
And as for Sleep...
Well, it's a pretty lonely life for Sleep, isn't it?
Drew is Sleep's only friend. There is something about Sleep's psychology that prevents it from making connections with other people. Drew, you are literally Sleep's entire emotional support network.
You've been self-isolating as best you can for months, but you've been ever more hermitizing for years, and do you remember early college? Do you remember high school?
You were a very lonely person. And you had friends. You still have friends. Yet, you're lonely.
Well, Sleep has only you. And Sleep can't get new friends. Imagine how lonely sleep is.
You are its emotional rock. Its therapist. It needs to vent to you about what's been troubling it.
So that's why it hurts you so much when you try and leave — you are Sleep's one and only true connection. Sure, you don't really know what Sleep gets up to when you're apart, but the way it saunters in so late and nonchalant... these are the actions of someone who is trying to project having it all together. Project being fine. And you know that if you try and leave it five hours later, the truth comes out and Sleep is not fine at all, Sleep needs you, you're hurting it so bad, help it sort itself out, please Drew, you're the only one who can help Sleep.
Sleep likes to make you think it leads a busy and exciting life, when in fact it likely spends most of its time huddled in the abstract concept equivalent of a man-cave playing Minecraft until it's time to see you.
Anyway, Drew and Sleep (Imagination, too) are in this together, moreso than any other relationships they may have. I just want you to grow up a little more and learn how to treat each other well. I believe you can do it.
I believe that Drew and Sleep (Imagination, too) can work out their differences and cultivate a friendship that is the envy of all.
I believe in you guys.