No doze

Sleep comes easily. Usually. I can sleep anywhere. I love naps. I even take little power naps at work: 20 minutes in a dark exam room at lunch. I even squeeze in a quick dream. But lately, sleep has been problematic. I follow all the rules. No caffeine in the afternoon. No late eating. No TV in bed or eating in bed. I wear ear plugs. I blacked out the LCD displays. I go to bed early. But the last few nights, sleep has been fractured. Last night every 45-75 minutes I woke up. And weird dreams. All my recurrent dream themes parade through my sleepscape. Frickin’ unfair.

Sleep is so paramount. Without it I am brittle. I lose my agility and my tolerance for bull shit. I am emotional and can’t shake things off. But I can’t take the day off. And I must function as if I slept perfectly. My friends says…..did the peas keep you awake? I am no princess. I can sleep sitting vertically. I fall asleep in an MRI machine. My brain likes and needs sleep. So….why aren’t I sleeping?

Too much going on. To saturated. Too many avenues and parameters, too many combinations. My brain can’t avoid or evade processing things. So….it just keeps running even while I try to sleep. And then I sleep text people, usually the person who has my brain most preoccupied. Or the person with whom I need or want to be talking with. But sleep texts never make sense. Even to me. Sometimes, through the haze when I wake, I can catch the gossamer of the dream’s tail but it lacks clarity. And it evaporates swiftly.

I write trying to clear my head enough so that tonight I can sleep.

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