I am taking a class called the Storytelling Workshop from Seth Godin. This is the story I came up with for the class assignment. It’s my first time telling it, so it’s a little rough. The assignment specified not to read from a script, so I deviated from it pretty hard. I may rewrite it based on what I recorded. Below the video is the original story I wrote.

I have been working/procrastinating for many years on my first book. The book is a tips-and-tricks and how-to manual on how to get to sleep. I am calling it Shut The Fuck Up and Go To Sleep. Hopefully, I will have a whole series of Shut The Fuck Up and… self-help books one day. This is for the intro to my book:

One day, back home after my first semester away at college, I was riding with my grandfather in his car. That day, he took a ring I had always seen him wear off his finger and gave it to me. He told me that he wanted me to have it because it had an amethyst, our shared birthstone. He wanted to make sure that I got it before he forgot. It wasn’t any particularly special day so I was a little puzzled why he was giving me such an expensive gift. Later that day, I told my mom about what happened and showed her the ring. That was when she told me that he had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.

I hate Alzheimer’s. It took my grandfather from me, soon it will take my mother, and eventually, it might even take me. It is a slow, painful, winding path towards death and there is no cure.

I will always love my grandfather. He had a lust for life and a way of making everyone around him happier. I would always get something, cheap, silly, and personalized as a gift from him for Christmas and on my birthdays. Even as a selfish little kid, I loved him so much it didn’t matter that I had no use for a mug with my name on or a keychain that said “Aquarius” on it. I would love it and cherish it because it came from him. I never saw my grandfather angry or lose his joy of life, even while he was losing his grip on reality.

It turns out that Alzheimer’s is caused by a buildup of plaque in your brain. One theory was that it’s caused by ingesting small amounts of aluminum. Another theory was that it is caused by not exercising your brain. In 2017 the book Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker came out and it showed a strong link between Alzheimer’s and lack of sleep. That made me realize that I needed to prioritize sleep.

I had always had a hard time getting to sleep. I was constantly complaining as a teenager about how school was unfair because it started so early. In college, I dropped out of my favorite class because it was too early in the morning and I couldn’t make it on time, even though I lived on campus. Troubles with sleep continued to haunt me well into my late 30s. The most devastating and embarrassing story was one day when I had to be on stage for a performance at 6 pm and missed it. I wasn’t able to get to sleep the night before, so earlier that day I accidentally fell asleep. I awoke a 5 pm to find that it was getting dark. I ran out of the door and called my acting teacher to say that I was on my way. She told me that I had missed the show entirely. It wasn’t getting dark, it was getting light. It was 5 am, not pm. I had slept through an entire day.

I had to figure out how to get to sleep. For many years, I used myself as a Guinea pig. I researched and testing different methods to see what worked. I still can’t get to sleep 100% of the time, but when I can’t, I at least know why, what to do about it, and what I can do to prevent it from happening again.

I don’t know if Alzheimer’s will catch up to me. I have been worrying about it and mentally preparing to accept it my whole life, so it will almost be a disappointment if it doesn’t. I just hope that I can take is as gracefully as my grandfather did.

My biggest hope is that getting enough sleep is the cure. But if it’s not, at least I can leave something behind that can help ease the pain of others so they can get some sleep. Sweet dreams. I hope you get something out of my book.