Insomnia sucks. You finally have all the time in the world to
write that novel
vacuum the attic
reorganize cabinets
read War and Peace
watch a whole season of Madame Secretary
…and instead, you stare into the inner space behind your eyelids, worry-cycle through all the ways you and your family is going to suffer then die, and finally put on an old movie that you’ve watched a hundred times that you chose mostly for its even sound level and length of play. If you had the energy to sit upright at the computer to edit, you’d manage to delete the last two weeks of work before you realized you’d better stop. You did this once, and every effort you made dig yourself out of that that techno-bumbling state delivered you further into file damage, computer viruses, and deletion. Even if you had the wherewithal to clean the house, you’d have to stay quiet for those rat bastards in the other rooms who might actually have the ability to sleep at night. No, they’re not really rat bastards, but how dare they mock you unconsciously as they twitch with blessed REM dreams.
Mike and I seem to take turns sleeping well, as if there’s some cosmic seesaw in which only one of us is allowed respite on any particular night. Or the seesaw’s completely cracked in half and neither of us sleep. There have been too many nights like that lately. I blame the pandemic and social unrest. I still blame trump. Does he really have to ruin everything? There are so many nights when Mike and I are both up worrying about it all and trying to get enough sleep so that we can function the next day.
And that’s not the cozy kind of two-people-not-sleeping because we both know if there’s any chance at all that one of us will sleep, it’s if we don’t talk to, worry with, or otherwise touch the other person in case they’re closer to the divine dream-state than we are. So, we’ve developed solitary night-time habits, lonely habits.
I’m up now, really up, but my jaw pops each time I open my mouth to sip coffee and it’ll take a while to work loose. I don’t think I grind my teeth so much as clench in my sleep. I wake up with my fists sore too. I was too tired to use the espresso machine, so I reverted to the instant coffee that takes minimal effort and tastes like it too. I haven’t made a mocha in at least two months.
Mike, taking a break from working at home, stands in the kitchen and keeps saying, “Back to bed,” in a sympathetic tone and I try to remember what I taught Nick when he was little: We don’t hit.
There is such a thing as psychosis brought on by the lack of sleep. I’m not quite there, because I do eventually get enough sleep to feel a little cheerful, but I can feel the Jekyll and Hyde cycle of being short on sleep in the wee hours and almost rested during the day. Combine that with the fact that I’m not really seeing any of my friends until there’s a vaccine and I’m pretty weird these days. I’ve been writing letters to those friends but I’m wondering if I sound more and more strange with every word I send.
So, yeah, my life consists of insomnia, working, cleaning, trying to grow a garden—that’s a whole new level of failure I’ll tell you about later—decontaminating groceries, cooking, trying to appear normal on camera, watching the news, and insomnia all over again every single fucking night. Welcome to my groundhog day.
Thank you for listening, jules