Insomnia, My Old Friend

My old pal Insomnia has returned in full force. After giving me a few months reprieve from nighttime restlessness, he’s come back to my bed to taunt and haunt me.

Sunday night was the worst. After a week of little sleep, I deliberately kept the evening quiet and dimly lit. I read for a while and was in bed by 10:30 p.m. By 12:30 a.m., after two hours of tossing, I gave up, flipped on the light and continued to read until 2 a.m. As a result, I was a horrible monster yesterday trying to function on 4.5 hours of sleep.

Sidebar: Chuck insisted I try a book by one of his favorite authors, Chuck Palahnuik (author of Fight Club). Since he humored me four years ago by finally reading the entire Harry Potter series, I agreed to try Survivor.  Let me just say this – If you’ve seen the movie “Fight Club,” then you probably have a good idea of how twisted a mind has to be to come up with such a bizarre story. Though “bizarre” is not my genre, Palahnuik is an imaginative writer and does well to stretch a reader’s brain. His writing dark, mordent and satirical. I found myself thinking about the story long after I’d go to bed, which naturally didn’t help the going-to-sleep process. I’ve since moved on to Eric Weiner’s Geography of Bliss.

But back to insomnia.

Last night, I tried to be even more quiet and calm. No TV, no computer. Only a long bath followed by reading. I took a melatonin pill at 8:30 p.m. and flipped off the light by 9 a.m. Though I fell asleep quickly, I was awake every three hours and woke up ten minutes before the alarm went off. I HATE when that happens. Grouch.

Right now, all I want to do is lay my head down on the keyboard and sleep.

But I shan’t. Instead I will do the usual: treadmill, book design, packing, feeding kids, book design, packing, bathing kids, book design, put kids to bed, book design, reading, attempt to sleep. Repeat, repeat, repeat. With much to do before we move, there is little time to rest.

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