2001-01-17

Insomnia

I will never be a Superstar�. I don't have the right sleepwear.

The last couple of nights have been rough on me and the Kevster. I am currently suffering from a bout of insomnia that has completely reversed my otherwise sun-dappled personality. I fall off well enough, and if I'm lucky, I get a couple of hours in, but by 3 AM I'm wide awake, in full-on Panic Mode�, prowling the silent apartment, counting backwards from 600, praying the Rosary, reading Ayn Rand...trying just about everything to calm my hammering heart and the eleventy-seven hundred random, stupid thoughts that are flitting across my brainscreen.

This happens every so often, the insomnia. When I was seven, I would jerk awake at about the same time every night, place my hands over my heart to make sure it was still beating, and then treat myself to a lavishly gruesome parade of "What If's?" that would keep me up and thrumming well into dawn. What if my parents die in a plane crash? What if I die on my way to school and I don't have my scapular on?

These days, the "What If's?" are far less existential, and border on the downright absurd, when I really get to thinking about it clearly in the daylight. What if the phone append I ran on that merge list doesn't take? For this kind of shit I lose up to 4 hours of sleep a night.

Anyway, as a means of safeguarding myself against another night of galloping melancholia, I've taken to making myself as comfortable as possible before bedtime. I drink a glass of milk, bundle up in an astonishingly UN-sexy plaid flannel ensemble, complete with wool socks, and, with all the eroticism of a Hefty Bag, climb into bed with the Herbal Relaxation Neck Pillow that I've heated up in the microwave. Then I read something really dry and academic until I fall asleep.

When I'm not in Insomniac Mode�, I sleep like the dead. I've slept through thunderstorms, raucous upstairs parties, fire alarms...my mother is fond of recalling the night when I was 6 or so, and had asked to be woken up to watch something-or-other on the television. No amount of nudging, prodding or yelling could rouse me. "Your brother," she says, "hit you on the head with a Tonka truck and you still wouldn't wake up."

Boy howdy - doesn't that sound wonderful right now?

Poor Kevin. He's had to bear the brunt of my rage the last few nights. Mere words cannot adequately describe the fury with which the insomniac awakens after finally getting to sleep. Because what I've been doing of late barely qualifies as dozing - teetering on the precipice of actual sleep - just about anything wakes me up, and unfortunately for Kev, it's him. The tiniest movement, the clearing of his throat....any of this is enough for me to wake with a violent start. Then I'll huff and slam around the house, contemplating divorce, until I start to feel tired enough to go back to bed, and poor Kev, as he informed me the other morning, lies there next to me not daring to go back to sleep until my breathing is even.

Pray for me tonight, kidlets; if I don't get a full eight hours soon, somebody's gonna get hurt...

lisamcc at 16:35:38

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