There’s an inherent haze that comes with insomnia. Sometimes I jolt awake, fully aware that I shouldn’t be, and my head immediately starts racing even if my body resists. Other times I wake up with a muddled head and stuffy nose, lumber toward the bathroom to pop an allergy pill, and involuntarily ease into waking (whether I lie back down or not). But either way, my brain fights through a disorienting fog, knowing that something isn't right.
I go through cycles of not sleeping well. At least once a month, there are stretches of days when I just can’t turn off my head. So I’ll wake up too early or go to sleep too late, and it’ll mess up my sleep the next day (which will mess up my sleep the next day), and it’s a compounding, confounding Teufelskreis. I function fine during the day when this happens, but nights and early mornings are unpredictable.
Still, I’d be lying if I said there are parts of insomnia that I don’t enjoy. There’s something incredibly hopeful and optimistic about the moment when you decide to get out of bed and start the day before everyone else is awake. The sun is down, so the house is dark and still. It’s blissfully quiet, which is a rare commodity in a house with children. The kids are still asleep, so you have the whole house to yourself. And when you sneak downstairs and turn on a single light, there’s just so much possibility to the day.
Sometimes I think maybe I’ll work out. Or maybe I could read for a while without being interrupted. I could write part of a chapter before the doubt and procrastination set in. I don’t know what, but I could definitely do something really very important that would make the day count. There’s a hopeful sense of purpose that emerges from the brain haze of early morning. Whether you’re drunk or sleep-deprived, a numbed brain is an invincible one.
This morning I turned on my laptop and added a section to my portfolio. That might be the most productive thing I do all day. It was done through an early-morning fog, but it was precise and productive. It was done with the satisfaction of knowing that anything else I do the rest of the day is just lagniappe.
The sun is rising over the trees outside the back windows now. The dawn is shooting light through the windows and clearing out my brain clouds. My superhuman determination and invincibility are starting to erode. I hear slight creaks on Conor’s floor above my head. It’s probably time to ease into the real world now. In any case, it’s definitely time to make the coffee.
But hey—I got something done. And maybe with a little bit of luck, I’ll get some sleep tonight.
Before I sign off, though, here are a few useful sayings about insomnia (that I found when I couldn't sleep, of course):
3 a.m. knows all my secrets.
"The worst thing in the world is to try to sleep and not to." - F. Scott Fitzgerald
"Insomnia is a glamorous term for the thoughts you forgot to have in the day." - Alain de Botton
"My eyelids are heavy, but my thoughts are heavier." - Neyaz Akhter
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