I Woke Up Injured. From Sleeping. This Is What We've Become.

Let me tell you something that will either make you laugh, cry, or throw your back out just reading it: I woke up sore this morning.

Not sore from an epic gym session. Not sore from moving furniture or splitting logs or wrestling a bear in Alaska with nothing but a flask of bourbon and a grimace. No. I woke up sore... from sleeping.

You hear me?

I laid down, on a mattress I paid good money for, under sheets I washed myself, in a room I personally dusted because my wife said it smelled “old”, and my body reacted like I’d just done eight rounds with Tyson. Old Tyson. Still terrifying.

My neck popped like bubble wrap the second I turned my head. My right hip was numb. My back? Oh, that bastard was staging a full-blown French Revolution. Spinal Bastille Day. I sat up and heard something in my shoulder crack so loud, even my dog looked concerned. And he's deaf.

And I sat there, perched on the edge of the bed like a wounded pelican, just… stunned. Trying to remember if I’d fallen down the stairs in my sleep. Checked the floor for blood. Nothing. Just me, a pillow, and betrayal.

This is aging? What a cruel joke.

And don’t give me that “You gotta stretch more” nonsense. I did! Before bed, even! Did that little toe touch thing, did some arm circles like I was warming up for recess. Hell, I even rolled out my back on one of those demonic foam tubes that’s supposed to help. It hurt, sure, but in that “This means it's working” way, like kale.

But nope. Body still treated eight hours of horizontal rest like it was a combat sport. Like I should’ve trained for it. Like maybe next time I need to carb-load and hydrate before I go to sleep.

I remember a time, vaguely, because memory is another thing that decided to jump ship, when I could fall asleep on a beanbag, wake up on a stranger’s floor, and be fine. Didn’t even use a blanket. Just youth and arrogance. Now? I sneeze wrong and need a chiropractor.

What is this?

Aging. That’s what.

But they don’t warn you about this part. They tell you your hair’s gonna go gray, or fall out. Fine. You’ll get wrinkles. Sure. They mention “slower metabolism,” which is just a cute way of saying your body hoards fat like it’s preparing for nuclear winter. But nobody says, “Oh, by the way, around 58, you’ll start waking up like you’ve been tackled by an NFL linebacker in your dreams.”

No warning. No pamphlet. Just… thwack. Good luck standing up, Boomer.

And I know someone’s reading this thinking, “Well, that’s just you. You’re probably out of shape.” First of all, screw you. Second of all… yeah, probably. But I’ve been working on it. Lifting weights. Eating clean. I even stopped drinking soda unless I’m mixing it with bourbon. I care, dammit.

But the truth is, this hits all of us. Doesn’t matter if you ran marathons in your 30s or chased toddlers or ran from the IRS. Eventually, the sleep demons come for you. Doesn’t matter what brand of mattress you bought, how ergonomic your pillow is, or how much you paid that Swedish guy to adjust your spine. Aging doesn’t care about your receipts.

It’s not just pain, either. It’s confusing pain. Like, I don’t even know where it comes from anymore. I’ll just be standing in the kitchen, minding my business, and boom—pain in the foot. Why? What triggered that? Did I offend the God of Ankles?

Other times it’s delayed onset. I’ll lift a box on Tuesday, feel fine all week, and then Sunday morning I’m hunched over like a question mark in church, wondering why the Lord has forsaken my lower back.

And the noises, oh God, the noises. My body now makes more sound effects than a Michael Bay movie. Snap. Crackle. Pop. Not breakfast cereal—just my joints. You sit down, the knees go CLACK. You stand up, the hips go CHRONK. You roll over in bed and it’s like a rusty seesaw trying to escape gravity.

I used to bounce. Now I recalculate.

Let me explain what that means. When you’re 20, you can just fall into bed. Any position. No thought. You could even sleep on your stomach with your head cranked sideways, drooling like a fountain, and wake up refreshed.

At 60? Oh, buddy. It’s a chess match.

You ease into bed. Slowly. Strategic placement of pillows. You’ve got to decide: side or back? Back is better for your spine but causes snoring that scares the dog. Side helps the snoring but might trigger shoulder death. Stomach? That’s a suicide mission.

Then there's the leg position. One knee up? Two knees together? Blanket tucked or untucked? You think this is sleep? No. This is engineering. This is tactical rest.

And even after all that effort, your body still wakes up pissed. Like it expected to be chauffeured through the night on a memory-foam cloud and instead got a Greyhound seat with a crying baby and a drunk guy snoring in your ear.

I swear my body dreams of labor. That’s the only explanation. My muscles clock in for night shift the moment I close my eyes. I think my glutes are working a warehouse job in their sleep. Probably unionized.

Meanwhile, my dreams have become increasingly hostile. Used to be spaceships, wild sex, flying over cities. Now? I’m just looking for a clean public restroom or trying to remember where I parked the car. My last dream involved a Walgreens, three coupons, and a woman named Linda who kept telling me I already used that 10% off. I woke up angry. And sore.

And the worst part? I still like sleeping. Love it. Nothing better than flopping into bed at the end of a long day. I look forward to it like a kid looks at recess. It’s my reward. My sacred zone. And now it betrays me.

That’s like going to your favorite bar and getting food poisoning. You still want to go, but now you’ve got PTSD and a backup toilet plan.

Sleep used to heal. Now it harms.

It’s not just soreness, either. Sometimes I wake up tired. I’ll sleep eight hours, nine if I’m lucky, and still wake up like I’ve been drugged. Like someone sedated me with horse tranquilizers and left me under a pile of bricks. The first hour of my day is basically a reboot.

Wake up. Sit on edge of bed. Rub eyes. Try to stand. Sit back down. Try again. Hobble to bathroom like a Civil War veteran. Sit on toilet and reevaluate life. This is my new startup sequence.

And when I don’t sleep? Oh God, it’s even worse. Can’t fall asleep at 10 because I made the mistake of drinking water after 8. Finally crash at 2:30. Wake up at 3:15 because my bladder’s apparently powered by a leaky faucet. Back to bed. Now the dog’s pacing. Now I’m sweating. Now my ankle itches. Now I’m thinking about that time I embarrassed myself in 8th grade. Finally sleep at 5:00. Alarm goes off at 6:00.

Congratulations. You are now awake for the day, feeling like you've been hit by a pickup truck driven by your own regrets.

And it’s always the same when I tell people.

“Just get a better mattress.”

“Try melatonin.”

“Do yoga.”

“Have you tried magnesium?”

Yes, Brenda, I’ve tried magnesium. I’ve tried herbs, potions, rituals. I’ve sprayed lavender on my damn pillow and sacrificed a goat to the sleep gods. Nothing helps. I think my body just hates me.

It’s personal now.

Aging is not graceful. It is not dignified. It’s a clumsy, awkward descent into noise, stiffness, weird smells, and an ongoing battle with gravity. It’s realizing that “slept wrong” is now a valid injury. That you can pull a muscle yawning. That socks can take five minutes and a full game plan.

That you can hurt yourself doing nothing.

And let’s talk about the doctors. You go in and say, “Doc, my back hurts every morning.”

They say, “Well, you are getting older.”

No. No no no. That’s not a diagnosis. That’s just rubbing it in. That’s like saying, “Well, the Titanic was going fast.” Doesn’t help. Give me a cure, not a reminder.

You want to feel really old? Go to a young chiropractor. Some 27-year-old named Skyler with abs you can grate cheese on. He cracks your back once and says, “You’re gonna feel sore for a few days, but that’s just your body adjusting.”

Adjusting to what? The Grim Reaper?

Look, I’m not asking for miracles. I don’t need to be 25 again. I don’t want to party all night or do parkour or wear pants without an elastic waistband. I just want to sleep… and wake up without feeling like I was mugged by my own mattress.

Is that so much to ask?

Apparently it is. Because now, sleep is dangerous. Sleep is combat. And every morning, I emerge victorious… but broken. Like a retired gladiator with a memory foam sword.

But you know what? I’ll take it.

Because despite the pain, the popping, the plotting spine coup… I still get up. I still move. I still laugh, and limp, and live. I’ve survived worse than sore sleep. I’ve lived long enough to deserve a creaky body. These aches are trophies. These pains? Battle scars. Proof I’ve made it this far without dying stupid.

So yeah. I woke up sore from sleeping. But damn it… I woke up.

And that still counts for something.