Unwelcome Guests

I don't hate sleep, though I hope the time I waste lying in bed trying to fall asleep gets assaulted in a parking lot. Last night, biting down hard on my mouthguard, I understood the distinction.

For a few years now, I've had trouble sleeping. Until I was twenty, I could fall asleep on command. I never understood my father who slept like he was being charged by the hour. Then somewhere in grad school, sleep and I became rare acquaintances.

It came suddenly. And has yet to retreat. Insomnia has annexed this bed. 

Around 3AM most nights I feel an obligation to my poor body to sleep. Though most nights it's a halfhearted attempt, I try anyway. My pillows treat me like estranged wives. I've neglected them all day and suddenly expect their love and comfort. If they could sleep on the other side of the bed with their backs to me, they would. I know it.

It is not the time wasted in the bed that is intolerable. And though it is a minor annoyance to use my time inefficiently, the most intolerable part is the quiet. The quiet invites every thought I nudged aside during the day to join me in bed. The quiet is patient. It waits until you've put your phone on the bedside table with Do Not Disturb turned on. It waits until the sleep timer on your stereo kicks off. It waits until your eyes are closed and you realize you should have been asleep three hours ago. When your body is heavy and your eyes hurt, it comes. 

If you're ever in need of some material for your therapist, I recommend jotting down the things that run through your head when you're trying to fall asleep. You are at their mercy. You can't outrun yourself. Believe me. I've tried. 

The Body's Need for Eight Hours of Sleep is Not a Myth

I sat in front of the keyboard for an hour tonight. Swing and a miss. My body feels alien from lack of sleep. Like it's not even mine. Like I'm renting a cheap suit that doesn't quite fit. Or the tailor got halfway through and gave up. Or I hit a growth spurt in selective areas of my body and now the proportions are all out of whack.

Either way, I had two bowls of cereal instead. Also, I cleaned the house. Marvelous how distractions can make the most miserable tasks appealing. I wanted to not write so much that I folded laundry. As I went to knock out the dishes, it dawned on me that nothing is more miserable than doing dishes and went back to writing instead.

Sleepless

This moment.

It's almost 7AM and I'm staring longingly at my pillow, but she has no interest in me. I'm up again. The daylight bleeds through my windows and the sound of birds chirping fills my hammer and anvil. To the well-rested, the sound ushers a new day. To the sleepless, it's an eight-year-old botching Für Elise over and over again. I hate those goddamned birds. They are a painful reminder that today will be trying; my body will lumber through the mid afternoon begging for reprieve, but there will be no parole for good behavior.

As a kid, I stayed up late watching Nick at Nite during the summer. I loved F-Troop, Petticoat Junction, and The Dick Van Dyke Show. My mom worked swing at a number of different casinos downtown. She'd drop me off at karate on her way to work and I'd make sure to spend most of that time listening to a mix-tape. I was a kid who had little interest bonding with my ridiculous mother. She'd get off around 3AM and I'd hear the garage door open. We didn't see each other much at this point in my life. But when I heard her keys jangle in the front door, I'd pretend I was sleeping. She'd walk in and I'd "wake up." We'd watch an episode or two, not talking too much. Sometimes she'd show me dubbed VHS copies of foreign karate movies. They were awful and I never understood any of it. The middle of the night was our time. It was our only time.

Maybe if I stay up late enough, my Mom will come home again.

Late Shift

"We live half in the daytime, and half at night."

I'm around a lot of night people, those who sleep during bankers hours, require the all-night ATMs and think a restaurant closing at 11PM is early. My heart belongs with the nocturnal ones, the insomniacs, those who eat breakfast at 2PM.  

No matter what I'm doing, watching the sun slink over the horizon makes me feel truant. As the night lazily become morning, my bed calls me to sleep. But my body is a negligent doctor refusing to answer its pages. I didn't used to be. I used to get to bed by 1AM like a normal person. Can't sleep anymore. Forgotten how. I live twenty hour days.

I used to think being a night person just time shifted your life. It doesn't. It changes you.  The hours one keeps doesn't simply dictate which movie show times you're available for. Your sleep patterns say a lot about you; their roots run deep. For instance, when you get off work at midnight, there aren't a lot of libraries, gyms, or grocery stores open. You can eat Wendy's or pub food. You can go home or to a bar. That's about it.

The night is a funny thing. No one makes huge regrettable mistakes at 9AM. The next morning, no one has ever muttered the phrase, "Jesus, I don't remember what happened after I had that second latte." It doesn't happen. But something about the umbrella of stars brings out the werewolf in all of us.

Here's to staying out all night, waking up with tattered clothes, and treating your body like a hotel room. I've been a day-walker most of my life. Cheers to the other side of the tracks, letting up on the reins, and loosing your tie.
 
cf. Night Owls

There's No Time

I'm never happier than when my pen's about to run out of ink, when there's not enough room left in my novel for a bookmark, or when my headphones can't get any louder. When I hear the birds outside my apartment heralding the dawn, I don't think about sleep. I wish they'd push the dawn back a few more hours. I'm not done with the night. I haven't laughed enough, haven't written enough, haven't loved enough.

I'm not headed anywhere but the ground when my heart stops beating. The horizon will disappear behind me like the eons that came before me. I got this time. No one knows when my egg-timer will ring. I'm not going to seize the day, nor will I live life to the fullest. I most certainly will not be living everyday like it's my last.  But I refuse to go to sleep early for work. Tomorrow morning, when my body feels like it's been put in a paint mixer, I'll drag my ass out of bed and smile on my way to work.

It's like Biggie says, "Stay humble. Stay working."   He didn't mean 9-5.

I'm a Sleepy Bear

I can't sleep. No, it's more ambiguous than that. It's somewhere between can't and won't. My body doesn't get tired. It runs at full steam until collapsing, usually around 4AM. Clinically I imagine I'm a high-functioning insomniac, though I'm not fond of the term. It implies a disease. I just don't sleep, like people who don't eat dairy. I suppose my body is capable of it, but seems disinterested like a caged panda bear. When some people lie down their eyes close, their heart rate slows, and at some point the REM cycle kicks in. Me not so much. Somewhere between the rampant noodling and spaghetti bowl bottleneck of ideas in my brain, sleep never gets much stage time.

I'm not complaining. It's how I work. I just think it's odd is all. I am exhausted with envy for you eight hour people.

Night Owls

Don't judge me. No seriously, don't.

I'm not a piece of shit because I stay up late. We all get our eight hours; mine start at 4AM. Yet there remains this hostility towards night people. I'm responsible, pay my rent, get to work on time. Some prefer the moon to the sun.

And so what if I were to sleep ten hours at a time? It's the body's natural recovery method. Sleep repairs the damage we do while ambling about sixteen hours a day. Why are we made to feel guilty for this? How dare you perform necessary bodily maintenance?

I'm not going to feel guilty for sleeping. You can't make me.

I read in the morning, go to the gym in the afternoon, and write at night. This is my schedule. I like it this way. You morning people, with your coffee and adult jobs, can sit on it.

Sleep v. Sex

Dear Future wife/girlfriend,

I may be too tired to ask, but I'll never be tired enough to say no.

Champion Insomniac

I've forgotten how to sleep.  Unless my body is on the verge of total exhaustion, it refuses to stop. Like a whale in captivity, it refuses to eat.  I present the main dish of a queen Sealy Posturpedic Mira Loma II with the ten year, non-prorated warranty, and all the trimmings: dual goose down / memory foam pillows and jersey sheets.  Yet it scoffs.  I can't tempt myself.  It hasn't eaten in months but it won't eat.  Why won't it eat?

I can feel my heart racing as I lay in my bed. It beats like it's trying to escape from my chest. Only in bed am I alone with my brain. My brain and I are like an old married couple. The only way they peacefully coexist is by keeping them separated as much as possible. At night, they are forced into the same space.  No distractions. Just a brain and a boy.

Before long, I cave. I can't stand the bickering.  I reach for the computer that sleeps on the side of my bed where a woman should be. Tech blogs, Chicago weather updates, Facebook.  Repeat.  I stare until my eyes ache and my fingers stumble across the keyboard like a girl learning to walk in high heels.  My body begs for sleep but my brain won't budge an inch. Fast forward three hours.

My chest is heavy. The air is thick. Sleep is a stranger.  I want to go to her.

Sleep is a homeless man and I am ignoring him.

Up for nearly twenty-four hours. Wow. Sleep is like double dutch. You've got a tiny window and if you miss it, you're screwed. Train metaphor works too. Eyeballs hurt.