Tales of an Insomniac, Night 4

Chronic sleep issues have plagued me since young adulthood (or younger adulthood, as the case may be, I'm not exactly old). However, the past four nights have been ridiculous.

Night 1, I blamed on not feeling well - achy, sore throat, general feeling of post-incident-of-being-flattened-by-a-Mack-truck. I tossed. I turned. I kicked Himself. He poked me back. I flailed. I piled all the covers on and kicked them all back off.

Night 2, I still blamed on not feeling well, though I had taken medication earlier to prevent that excuse. It didn't really work. I laid in the quiet stillness and breathed. I listened to Woodstock breathe over the baby monitor. When I knew Himself was absolutely asleep, I turned on the lamp and read.

Night 3, I took the laptop to bed with me and started to watch the season finale of NCIS online. Himself chose that moment to go to bed. I went on an expedition to find is iPod headphones (I own no headphones). Except, well, except we moved TWO MONTHS AGO, and apparently that box hasn't been unpacked. As I turned back to return to the bedroom, an entire tower of CDs fell over, without me managing to touch them. I muttered. Loudly. Himself wanted to know why I was wandering around with all the lights on causing things to fall over. I eventually found an old crossword puzzle book, one of my old cures for insomnia. It took 2 hours to work. The last time I saw the clock, it was 3:30 a.m.

I expected to be ravished when I woke up the next morning at precisely the same time Woodstock did (no, it was not a coincidence). I wasn't. I expected I would fade late in the day. I didn't any more than usual. Of course, one of the hallmarks of my insomnia is going for DAYS without more than 3 or 4 hours of sleep and then needing 11-12 hours a night for weeks to make up for it. All of this was fine prior to the arrival of Woodstock, of course.

Day 4 (last night) was even worse. I went to get gas at 11:30 p.m., before the Sunday bewitching hour of midnight. We didn't particularly need gas, we don't ever drive the car on Sundays and the tank was 1/3 full ... but, well, just in case - and I needed something to do. It didn't work. I washed the dishes - by hand. I puttered. Sometime around midnight I decided to make bread. It helped exhaust me, but did nothing to bring on feelings of leaded eyelids. And, to be honest, bread made at midnight isn't as good as bread made at a normal daylight hour ... it's finicky enough as it is, I was just asking for disaster by undergoing the task in the wee hours of the morning.

And then ... nothing. Sleep still did not come. I counted the hours, minutes, seconds until morning. I curled up next to Himself. I counted sheep, worked another New York Times crossword puzzle and waited.

I waited clear into Day 5.