Wasting Time

I have insomnia.

It's something I've dealt with for over thirty years, so it's not a big surprise when I have a sleepless night.

When I was a kid I would use those wakeful times to take everything in my room and clean it all up and put it all away properly. I was pretty lazy about keeping my room clean, so it was a good way to kill time. It happened about once a month.

As I got older the time between those insomnia fueled nights grew. Growing up means taking on more and greater responsibilities, and those things tire you out. It's easier to get yourself into that go to sleep mindset.

But, when those responsibilities get routine or extra stressful, I find my insomnia gets worse. If I'm overly energetic because everything was easy to do or lacking in any real mental challenge, insomnia strikes more often. If hectic work days of high pressure and quickly needed results are the norm, insomnia strikes more often.

What's most annoying is how little being physically tired has anything to do with it. Working all day at a desk and then doing nothing else at home but watching TV and putzing on the computer doesn't make it hard for me to get sleep, nor does running a hockey league and playing a couple games a night make it easy. It's completely tied to my mental state.

And so now I'm writing all this out because I've already had one sleepless night this week, and now I'm on my second. Up for two days, sleep, up for two days, sleep would be an acceptable pattern if that second day awake wasn't so awful.

I have an easy time working through this tiredness, what I don't have is knowledge on how to make it not feel horrible. I feel overly warm, I have a harder time doing things I find enjoyable, and of course it's physically uncomfortable.

But I'm writing all of this merely to get it out of my head in the hope that maybe, if I'm lucky, writing out this boring problem will allow my unquiet mind a moment to shut up and let me get to sleep.

I don't think it will since my insomnia is not the kind where I lay awake in bed all night staring at the ceiling. Mine is the kind where I have a very difficult time making myself actually get into bed and turn out the lights. There's just too much happening. There's things to read, watch, see, or do. There's world problems and family issues. There's creative endeavors and imagination powered anxieties. And I'm just not very good at making myself stop and go to bed.

Instead I sit and write stupid essays that no one will read or play games that I find little enjoyment in or read books that I enjoy enough that I put them down for fear that I'll keep reading instead of sleep or tons of other possible time wasters that I have employed rather than get up and go to sleep.

I've got too much respect for women to actually do it, but I've wished for a someone merely so there would be somebody to tell me "just go to bed." It would be so much easier since it wouldn't be my own, easily ignored, inner voice.

It's very frustrating when you have insomnia and someone talks about what keeps them awake at night and your own answer is "thinking about everything, all at once".