You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy™
Yawning all day long.
I feel like I am functioning on no sleep.
I’m yawning and rubbing my eyes and wiping my nose.
I’m just drag assing around.
My eyes burn. My eyes are red. My brain is swollen, wrapped in an envelope of jelly that is making it hard to decide what to do.
Last night was one of those nights.
I found myself tossing and turning in a sleepless void.
My pillow was too hard. Wait maybe it was too soft. No, maybe my head was too hard. Or was my hair too soft.
When you can’t sleep, everything little thing can upset the nocturnal apple court, right?
I think the problem was thought.
Oh no. I’m thinking. Stop thinking. think later.
Who cares how to grip a curve ball?
What if the dog craps on the floor?
Why is the clock ticking so loud.
If I open my eyes in the dark will it look any different than staring into my eye closed eye lids?
And so it goes.
Hour after hour of mindless energy expended when the mind should be napping.
Just enough energy to keep my brain circling the drain, but not enough mental quiet to fall off into dreamy oblivion.
Why does that happen? You want to sleep. You are in perfect position for ZZZZZ’s.
But it just doesn’t happen.
The covers are so soft, and the bed so inviting, yet sleep will not come.
Count sheep. Dream of darkness. empty your brain.
Nothing.
Does laying quietly with your eyes shut count as sleep?
I don’t think so.
I woke up several times last night.
I thought about getting up and using the bathroom, making a sandwich, flossing my teeth.
I did none of the above.
I mostly thought about sleeping and why I couldn’t sleep.
Have you ever tried to make your mind blank when it is full of energy.
The darkness behind your pupils is black, but it is filled with electric streaks that crackle in the darkness like lightning on a summer’s night.
Sometimes it is a neon sign on a busy street pulsating, inviting everyone to stop in for a night cap.
Sometimes it’s a simple white line on a black board that slowly scribbles letters to nobody.
The energy is just enough to fend off sleep.
That which you desire lingers at the back door, waiting to enter, but it never does.
It can only come when the mind is blank, free of activity, ready for uninterrupted rest.
On and off I bounced between wanting to sleep and almost sleep.
Then around 4 am I know I am awake, because I made the mistake of opening an eye and peeking at the clock.
Bad move.
Just one glance. Just a quickie to know what time it is.
Bad Move.
If you know what time it is, then you know how long you have till the alarm blares.
It’s more thinking. More math. Sleep is nowhere to be found now, hiding, lurking somewhere in the dark, just out of reach.
So now I can’t get back to sleep.
Should I make a ham sandwich? Should I walk the dog? Should I pull the covers over my head?
Tick Tock.
Suddenly the comfort of blackness is gone.
The sun begins to illuminate the coming day.
Birds begin to wake up and announce the arrival of the sun.
The sounds of morning are inescapable.
A car starting.
A siren in the distance.
A dog barking to come back inside.
This is when I am the most tired, when I need to start getting up.
At 6:30 the alarm blares and the harsh reality of the night is complete.
Instead of seducing sleep to enter your mind from a dark place, you are left with trying to convince yourself that you can make it the next 18 hours on an empty tank.
You hope a couple of cups of coffee will energize you. It helps, but coffee is no substitute for REM sleep.
A cup of coffee is good for scraping the ice off the frontal lobe, but it only goes so far.
A cup of coffee after a sleepless night is the equivalent of a breath mint after a night of jail house vomiting.
It helps, but if you think you aren’t going to turn a few heads, you are mistaken.
As I write this, I’ve been awake for what seems like 24 hours.
I am fading fast, but I have to be my most sharp at 10pm.
I can’t stutter or fall down or drool on myself.
God forbid I start cursing, thinking I am at a bar.
I’ll make it. I always do.
The good news?
There’s no way sleep can stay away tonight.
It will come like a pusher in the night, injecting me with sodium pentothal, forcing me to drink in the darkness, the calm, the aesthetic ether of bliss.
I welcome it. I want it. I can make it for another hour or so, then my batteries, like my iphone will be empty and in need of a charge.
That charge is sleep. An electrical impulse connected to quiet and rejuvenation.
Bring on the darkness. Bring on the sleep.
Life’s Crazy™