Monday, December 5, 2011

The Joys of Insomnia

The joys of insomnia............................... there are none.

Insomnia is like this, there are two sides on a raging river. From the awake side of the bridge, you can see the peaceful land of sleep. The clouds are fluffy is a blue sky, deer and bunnies frolic in the tall grass; that you know is as soft as a down filled bed, the good kind with no feathers, only down. It is a peaceful land with wildflowers and beauty that smells like fresh baked bread and honey. In my world, it IS the promised land! You know that when you get there your night is going to be sweet, satisfying and deliciously refreshing.

The side of the bridge that you currently reside on is bedtime land. It too is a sweet land filled with goodnight kisses from your spouse, a light nighttime snack, a soothing read and peaceful darkness. Ahhhh...

Then you try to cross the bridge into happy sleep land. You are minding your own business as you confidently walk towards the bridge. People do this every night, how hard can it be. You are at peace in your knowledge that soon you will be there, happy and blissfully asleep. You spot the newel posts that frame the lovely entrance to the bridge. Oddly, one of the newels comes off in your hand like the one George struggles with in It's a Wonderful Life. Hmmmm... that's not good... You go to place your foot on the sweet wooden bridge and stop dead. There is no bridge! Your foot dangles over a precipice that is suddenly a seemingly endless drop into a rushing brutal torrent of whitewater crashing between the two sides of your night. You yank your foot back - whew! That was close!

As you are congratulating yourself on your narrow escape from doom, you suddenly realize that you are still on the awake side. The sleep side is beckoning you, everything in you yearns to answer the call. But you are still here. Ah, therein lies the eternal problem. Bridge out. No sleep for you! You don't panic, after all you have done this a million times before, you just need to not panic. Okay, it took my husband 10 full seconds to fall asleep. If he did it, you can. Suddenly you notice that there is a clock ticking. It is a metaphorical clock, but the universe wants you to be certain that you hear the click of every passing second. No problem, You got this.You can overcome the ticking, the blackness, the knowledge that you are alone in the universe and no one is going to keep you company for the next eight hours. No big deal... you relax on your comfy pillow and await bridge repairs...

The second hour your comfy pillow has now become those little sticker thingys that you used to step on barefoot in the summer and they clung to your foot and jeans like a limpet and take you 20 minutes of precious summer time to pull off. The cozy dark now has your neighbors motion activated light being turned on once every five minutes by a rabbit whose trying to break into show business and is practicing its bows by the spot light from the neighbors garage. You are suddenly keenly aware that your husbands breathing sounds like the sleestak in the original Land of the Lost series. And the blankets are hot and heavy... no, too cold and light... wait... no... hot... cold...cold...hot...pretty much whatever you need them to be, they are not.

By the fourth hour you have turned into a mewling babe. You stand on your yucky side of the bridge and gaze longingly at Happy Sleep Side, while whimpering in the dark. You have become pathetic. If you had your childhood blankey and a baby pacifier you stole from a passing baby, you would use them.

At four and a half hours, you have this momentary lapse in your awakeness. You think you might have fallen asleep! You are so excited you wake yourself up to tell your self the wondrous news! Oh Crap!

By hour five you realize it is hopeless and you decide to read a book. Any book that is within reach, because it doesn't really matter what it is, you are only faking reading it. Your brain knows that you are only trying to stave off panic.

As you start dis-associative rocking, you listen to the clock ticking, tick...tick...tick...tick...tick...tick...tick...tick...timing your whimpers to the metaphorical clock almost sounds like music...okay...maybe not...the fetal position isn't so bad really...yup, you are pretty much hosed.

Only two more hours of this torture and you can get up and go to work so everyone can comment on how tired you look and you can spend the day reminding yourself that you liked your co-workers yesterday and yesterday they didn't look like extras from the Orks in Lord of the Rings. You realize your perception may be skewed.

Tonight you get to try for the bridge crossing all over again...yippee...

Written at 4:42am...sigh...


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