SLEEP?

SLEEP?

I miss sleep. SO much. I stalk sleep – I plot and plan and drift, but no sight of slumber. It's been so long since I've encountered lovely sleep that I fear I shall never see sleep again.

Eventually, I suppose we shall all see sleep. For always. When sleep eludes as effortlessly as an unwanted friend, it's the permanent midnight we dream of. How sad.

Sleep is a barometer of wakefulness. What we are feeling, thinking, doing, wishing, wondering … if sleep avoids us, we are avoiding something else. Denial only denies more sleep. Yearning only leads to more yearning. Sleep plays the persist/resist game better than any other illusion. The more we want, the more we think about it, the less likely we are to glimpse the vision.

I took pills – until they stopped working. I stayed on a schedule – that eventually scheduled me … off.

I stayed up, I exercised, I meditated, I read. Nothing worked. Except escalation of anger, because I've lost something I cherish. Restful sleep.

This malady is not uncommon to writers. Or other creative types that are thus so because they can't sleep. I know that, and I wanted to be a writer, so sleeping will not return unless I'm willing to relinquish the pen. And I can't. Cray-cray is my new normal and it denounces sound decision making, you know, like do I want this or that? What day is it? Am I doing the right thing? What's that burning? Oh, it's just my life going up in smoke. Without sleep.

Occasionally, when my punitive grief gives up the ghost and I accidentally lull towards a lullaby, nightmares replace once vivid and vibrantly beautiful dreams and jar me awake to the excoriation of a self-examined existence. It's not pretty. The mirror reflects endings rather than beginnings. All frayed endings.

My new sleep is like a rotisserie. Tossing and turning and never quite done. Restless. Recalcitrant. Revolving through twisted sheets and tormented thoughts. I can't get my brain to turn off. Useless as it is.

All that's left is anger. And questions. Where did sleep go? Does it miss me? Does it think about me too? Does it secretly search me in the night?

Will I ever see sleep again? Eventually, I suppose I shall. It may come too late for any dreams.

Maybe it's the dreaming I really miss.