Insomnia by any Other Name is Still Insomnia - iNeed a Playdate Insomnia by any Other Name is Still Insomnia iNeed a Playdate a Blog for Northeast Ohio Moms

10.18.2011

Insomnia by any Other Name is Still Insomnia


I'm so exhausted I want to throw up.

My hands shake as I type because my body is fighting me today. Not even coffee helps, not today.

My bed calls to me but I can't seem to stay asleep.

I nap in fifteen minute intervals only to be woken by nothing in particular. Sometimes it is a random little hand searching for me in their sleep, occasionally it is the stirring of the body next to me but mostly it is nothing.

I don't think in my awaken state but instead see images playing on a loop in my mind. Over and over again, they flicker until I am too wired to even hope to sleep.

It is not fair, I think, as I listen to the breathing of those who are asleep.

The idea of sleep occupies the hours that I am suppose to be awake. My eye lids sag and the war that I have been unwillingly waging with them is nearing an end but even if I was to nod off, I would find no relief. My eyes inevitably open again to stare to see those near me sleeping peacefully.

I'm irrationally angry that they sleep so well and I do not.

Screw this, I'm getting coffee; maybe I will do the dishes and fold some laundry.

Productivity in the light of little sleep has at least some sort of justification when something is accomplished like the chores that went undone the day before this sleepless night.

I don't bother with all of the lights; just the one over the sink will do for these early morning obligations. It shines just enough to turn on the coffee pot and to see the dirt on the dishes. Turning on my iPod, I wait for a song to start, filling my mind with a melody before turning on the water. I hum as I clean, breathing in deep that delicious aroma of fresh coffee.

Moving with the music, the dishes are rinsed and drying in the rack, so I start on the next task and then the next; still moving with the music. Glancing at the clock, amazed at how time moves when you are not lying still, I start on making lunches for the day.

Peanut butter and grape jelly, the same thing every day. It has been the same since preschool and every single day of kindergarten, his lunch of choice follows him through his first grade year now.

Is that the baby, or maybe the first grader? I flash back to the other day when I was asked not to call him by the pet name I have used since he was born. Since when did he have a choice? I agreed but in my sleepy mind, I slip and call to him using his nickname – no answer. They are all still asleep.

I am still awake.

Another cup of coffee?






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This is the sixth installment of Just Write, an exercise in free writing your ordinary and extraordinary moments. {Please see the details here.}
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