I used to be a good sleeper, and boy, do I miss those days.
I took it for granted then, sleeping until 2 in the afternoon on a Sunday after a late night/early morning. "Catching up" on sleep on days when I could, my body cooperating and letting me, instead of punishing me for running myself ragged and going too long without enough sleep.
As the youngest child, I definitely have a pretty strong case of FOMO - fear of missing out. So I'm usually the last one standing, you know, in case something exciting happens and I'm not there to see it. Since my favorite thing in the world is collecting stories and retelling them again and again, I don't want to miss any opportunity to see someone, you know, fall off a bar stool. I want to be there for the big reveal.
But even more strongly, as I've blogged about before, I just don't get tired that easily. In college, I'd stay up most of the night to not miss a thing, and sleep through too many classes. I have a huge amount of energy that frankly, given some minor medical issues, my overall conditioning and diet, I really don't deserve. I can pretty much out outwork and outlast anyone, and I am not sitting down until "Last Dance" plays. One of my fondest memories involves someone who doesn't like me very much looking at me on the dance floor at 4 in the morning and asking, "Don't you have an off switch? I'm kind of impressed," before grabbing me for a twirl.
I often think that I'll be one of those people who just drops dead -- hopefully at a very ripe old age many years from now and hopefully in the middle of the Electric Slide (and maybe by then I'll be able to remember that it's right, left, backward, forward and not left, forward, backward, sonuvabitch what is it again, dammit?) -- but I can see it happening, essentially just like my batteries running out. And the curtain falls on my life. That wouldn't be such a bad way to go if you really think about it.
My concussion two years ago brought about insomnia, which, to be blunt, has been a bitch. It has gotten much better since my accident first happened and I was spending most nights totally awake in an anxiety induced panic, worrying about my brain exploding. Who would find me? Was my apartment was clean enough so that the authorities wouldn't come in and think Big and Little Edie or the Collyer Brothers lived there? How many days would pass before my fat cat ate my face off? I'm guessing he wouldn't last a day. My friend's husband is a firefighter in NYC so she decided that if I went quiet for too long, she was sending him over to break the door down with his fireman's ax or whatever it is he's got. Even now, on a rare off day, if she doesn't hear from me for a few hours, I get a text reading, "I'm sending John..." And, from my prone position on the couch in my yoga pants watching the 3rd Lifetime movie in a row, I'll come back to reality long enough to text her back, "Alive!" Now that's a friend.
So things are much better from those days, but I'd be lying if I said I can remember a time when I slept through the entire night. Sometimes I get lucky and get a few hours in a row. Most nights, not so much, but enough to get by.
But recently, after a long period of drifting apart, sleep broke up with me. I don't know why. It didn't even leave a note on a Post-It Berger-style saying "I'm sorry, I can't, don't hate me." Is it me? Is it sleep? I don't know, and sleep's not telling. Just talk to me, sleep, whatever it is I did, I'm sorry. Please come back. What is it you want - you want the phone out of the bedroom? It's gone. You want me to appreciate you? I'll do anything.
But everyone else has a theory.
Am I anxious? Well, sure, always. I live in New York. And there's a continuous loop in my head.
Am I depressed? See "Am I anxious?"
Do I need to exercise more? Probably, yes, but I'm currently using up all of my energy, um, not sleeping, which leaves me not much energy for exercise.
Am I bored? Yes, because I am AWAKE 24 hours a day.
Is there a lot on my mind? Yes, especially "not sleeping" and "how long someone can go without sleep." See "Am I anxious?"
I wish I could use this time for good. I wish I knew how to cure cancer but I slept through too many classes to know how to do that, which I wish I could say makes me wish I didn't sleep through all of those classes, but if I had to do it all over again, I'd do it the same way. I'm still friends with all of those people I stayed up all night listening to, and that has to be worth something.
It makes me feel for new parents who are sleep-deprived, but not as much as I feel for me. At least they have a baby, something to show for it and hopefully that baby will eventually sleep through the night and grow up to, I don't know, give you a funny story to endear you to the security guard who barely cracks a smile, or maybe take the trash out now and then or draw you pictures you can hang on the refrigerator. I only have black circles under my eyes, a short temper, and a low bar for humor.
An acquaintance tells me that he gets angry when he sees people on
the subway just sitting, taking up a seat and not doing anything. It
makes him mad when he sees people just staring off into space blankly.
If you're going to sit, he says, you should use the seat properly. You
should do things that you need to sit for, things that would be too
dangerous or unpleasant or impossible to do while standing. Like
reading, or knitting, or eating chicken wings, or sleeping.
Ahh, yes, sleeping.
Pushing buttons ... Not thinking, I ask? Not thinking. What about talking? No, not talking. Definitely not talking.
I
laugh and think about my bed where no sleeping happens and think about
how, with this logic, that's a waste of a good bed. Someone else should
have it. Should I keep it as a shrine until sleep happens again? Maybe I'll rent it out with the understanding that I'm allowed to sit and stare resentfully all night at the sleeping occupant. It's my right.
I'm essentially willing to try anything at this point. I read that the hops in beer makes you drowsy. Done it. Exercise early in the day wears you out. Done it. Magnesium. Done it. No fluids past 6 pm in case it's a pee thing. Done it. Shut off all electronics. Done it. Write down all of your worries. Done it (or tried to, they don't make enough paper). Keep a regular schedule. Done it. Meditation, yoga, visualization - done, done, and done.
And there are dozens more ideas that people have put forth to be helpful and supportive, but, frankly, I'm too tired to try a lot of them.
What I am trying are these herbs from my acupuncturist after refusing them for nearly two years.
Him: Are you doing ok?
Me: No.
Him: Will you take the herbs?
Me: Yes.
Him: (Clearly prepared for a fight that didn't happen) That was easy.
They taste like dirty feet (I guess, not that I'd know what they taste like) and look like hamster pellets and smell like the woods and hurt my mouth and I have to take them FIFTEEN at a time twice a day but if they work, I'll throw a parade for them and make recipes and bake them into cakes and tarts. Well, if I did that kind of thing.
Living in NYC, you can hire someone to do anything for you. Grocery shopping. Laundry. Housecleaning. Change a light bulb. You can even pay to outsource emotional support. My therapist gets paid to listen to my crazy. My acupuncturist keeps track of my period, my moods, my sleep (or lack thereof), and my bowel habits (TMI, I know. I went there, sorry. But it's true.).
Really though, I pay them to listen and care (or pretend to) so no one else has to.
Especially me.
Which is maybe part of the problem.
They say that I talk a whole lot but don't say much. You never talk about you, they say, and I guess they're right. Don't be nice to me, I say, it'll make me cry, I can't take it. Just tell me what to do, I say, and I'll do it. What do you want to do, they ask. I'm just tired, I say. Tell me I have no choice but to do it and I'll do it, I say. It's not that easy, they say. We don't do that, they say. It's better if you come to the realization yourself. Didn't it feel good that you made the decision yourself, they ask. No, I say, it felt the same to me, like something happened vs something not happening. Isn't the end result the same?
I guess not.
I'm beginning to realize that I'm the only one who can repair this broken down relationship with sleep. What drove it away? Did I neglect it too much? Did I push it away with a lack of trust? Did I drive it crazy by talking too much? Did I say too much or not enough? Do I snore? That seems unlikely.
Damned if I know, and ironically, I'm too tired to care. But pass the Benadryl, and maybe, come morning, I'll be better equipped to tackle this.
But in the meantime, sleep, please come home. I'll leave the light on for you.
