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Insomnia

It began 9 years ago, in the blistering wet heat of Florida. While the world slept, I watched the clock ease its way through the late night. I learned the joys of ebay at midnights, and reruns of Friends at 2am, and infomercials where I was promised a double order plus free shipping and handling if I.Just.Call.Right.Now! I watched Rhiannon asleep, still a baby, with sporadic phantom boob suckling. I was startled by Jake's sleepwalking/sleeptalking/sleepbasketball playing. I took showers stealthily in hopes it would trigger drowsiness, but to no avail. I cannot exactly tell you what would run through my mind as those minutes and hours dragged on. In retrospect, I assume I was suffering from postpartum, and my mind was whirling like an out of control carousel. Jake and I were planning our wedding, though in all honesty, Jake took more of a bystander role. With a limited budget, I hunted down guest books and veils from novice auction sellers, and panicked about paying DJs and photographers. I had a young baby, and I fretted over my every misstep. I lived far from my family and any support, so I spent eons yearning for companionship, and it spilled over into the night, I suppose.
When I moved to New York, the insomnia lowered its ugly head, and while I never was one to achieve more than a solid few hours of rest without nightmares, night pees, or muscle cramps, I did not suffer those evenings of watching the clock, thinking- if I fell asleep right this minute, I would get 3 hours before the alarm goes off....
And now, my world has once again been shaken like a snowglobe, disrupting those once peaceful particles and swirling them around my head. The calliope music has begun once more, and the carousel, my friends, is off and running. I sit here at Jake's computer, in his apartment in Raleigh, and for the life of me, cannot fathom sleep, or even its lowly imposter, catnap.
On this night alone, I have tended to crying babies, children with nightmares and children with headaches. I have watched Hulu and scrubbed Jambalaya dishes. I reorganized jake's bachelor pad-esque closet, and scrutinized facebook. The quiet (besides collective snores) merely exacerbates the angst in my head, like my brain in the midst of a tantrum.
I have tried the suggested means of sleep begetting.... counting sheep becomes a fluffy woolly mosh pit, picturing myself melting muscle by muscles becomes an electric Dali painting in the works. Taking a warm bath reminds me of places needing a razor, a pluck or a buff. I could take a drive, which almost always acts as a surefire method of sleep when done during inappropriate day hours, but my GPS does not recognize this apartment complex, and therefore I would become lost.
I am reminded by friends, family and even by inner intellect that this too shall pass. Soon, it will be behind us, and we will have squared things away. In the grand scheme of things, our stress is miniscule and petty. I could put things in perspective by reading CNN, though I am doubtful whether stories of war, drunken mother drivers and kidnapped disabled boys will be the antidote for my insomnia. Instead, I suppose, I will take this opportunity to reflect. Or catch up on shows I have missed during these travels. I could play childish pranks on my sleeping family, or seek out faraway friends for an IM session or two. I could listen to some of jake's random music, so as to give my moshing sheep music to which they could behave badly.
As the minutes are ticking, on my friends and readers, I wish you sweet dreams and a lack of bed bugs ( which, I have learned, are not fictitious creatures).

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