To Be an Insomniac

Insomnia is no fun. Having to deal with it all of my life hasn't been fun, especially in high school. Still being an insomniac with a baby is twice as much not fun. 

On average I get about 3-4 hours of sleep on a good night. Most nights I only get 2 hours of sleep. Lately (as in the past two weeks), it has seemed like even less. And (gratefully) I can not blame it on my Little Bug not sleeping through the night because he has been sleeping through the night for most of his short life. 

As long as I can remember, I have not had a good relationship with sleep. And I have a feeling that I will never have a good relationship with sleep. There have been many nights where I got no sleep at all. Yet I have been able to function well enough. 

During a night when I can't sleep, I usually just stay in bed and toss and turn, trying to get comfortable, and think and think and think. I think about problems I have that need fixing and I usually come up with some sort of solution. I think about the good times. I think about the bad times. I play the "What would have happened if..." game. I think about my past and long for those days again. I lie there looking around the room at the shadows. To be honest I sometimes get scared, but then I remember that I'm not alone. 

I don't like being an insomniac. I didn't choose to be an insomniac. I like sleeping and I cherish every night I do actually get some sleep. I have tried everything I can come up with to be able to sleep better. Yes, I am stressed and I do what I can do let it go, but I'm a mother. Yes, sometimes I can't sleep because of pain (I'm very accident prone), but I make do and try my very best to get comfortable. Maybe I think too much. Maybe I worry too much. Maybe I there is something wrong mentally. Or maybe it's because I share a bed with a very tall and lanky person who LOVES to curl up into a ball and take up the majority of the space causing his knees to make contact with me many times during the night. (I love you FATMAN!) 

Or maybe I'm just not cut out to sleep. Maybe that's the way I was made. Regardless of why I can't sleep, I am grateful for the few hours I do get and I do my best to be my best and accomplish what I can. I have learned to work with little to no sleep and have grown very much accustomed to it. One day I will be able to sleep.