This is one of the first thoughts that pops into my head this morning at 6:06, which is about an hour and a half before my alarm is supposed to go off. I've been insomniac for a few months now, with one or two good nights of sleep to keep me from going completely mad. But with the exception of when I was staying with my folks in Wisconsin, I've barely had a full, consistent eight hours of sleep a night since . . . early November?
Sleep issues are my leitmotif. I've been an insomniac since childhood, and a sleepwalker for much of my life. I have frequent, intense nightmares from which I wake screaming.
Sorry upstairs neighbors. Also, I know we live in Minnesota and consequently do not ask about the private lives of our neighbors but, really? Screaming in the middle of the night doesn't deserve a "Hey, are you all right?"
Over the years, I've learned the things that trigger sleeplessness or walking, but the older I get the more I feel like I'm trying to exercise control over a part of my life that makes very little sense. I know that stress triggers sleepwalking, but despite running fifteen miles a week, having an active spiritual life, and being surrounded by people who loved me, I still had a sleepwalking incident in graduate school that starred me as the Grand Empress of Prussia and a fleet of attacking trebuchets. I know that going to sleep requires a ritual and that having the computer on in the bedroom, checking your cell phone before bed, and using your bedroom for anything except sleep or sex interferes with your ability to fall asleep. But despite having banished all these things from my bedroom, I still can't sleep.
Last week I wrote about the lack of physical affection in my life and how that takes a number of forms. There are a couple that trouble me more than others namely the lack of hugs, (seriously, North Country) and sleeping alone.
A few weeks ago I attended a wedding with the gang from Minneapolis. The Sunday after the wedding we were all hanging out in the living room of the cabin where we were staying, lounging in our pajamas, reading, talking about comic books and Battlestar Galactica vs Firefly. As people slowly absorbed caffeine we started talking about how everyone slept the night before and room temperatures. Then the conversation took a funny turn and suddenly every partnered woman in the room (which was all but two of us) started talking about how her boyfriend had a core temperature that rivaled Mount Vesuvius on Volcano Day.
I wear wool socks and gloves to sleep. There are seven blankets on my bed. Most nights, I crawl into bed with a heating pad. This is my general state of affairs from October until May. During the summer, I still keep my quilt on my bed. As a result, I couldn't see the downside of having a personal space heater crawl into bed with me. Then the women present (and a few of the men this time) started talking about how their bedtime compatriots like to fall asleep cuddling and suddenly I was on board. Snuggle up on the couch and watch TNG or read with your partner? Absolutely. Yes. Where can I sign up? Try and spoon me while I'm making my nightly pleas to Morpheus for a quick drop into dream? I'll submit, but I'll also hate you, quietly. Mainly because I'm restless when I'm attempting to fall asleep and if you want to cuddle I will feel (inevitably) that I have to stay in one position all night and then I really won't sleep.
I am really good at a lot of things. Baking cakes. Impressing funders. Raising money. Consistently reading over forty books a year. Quoting The Great Gatsby. Salvaging recipes that should be all but lost. Intellectual bare-knuckle boxing.To name a few. But I am unequivocally terrible at vulnerability in my real life. Before I continue, I acknowledge a certain amount of vulnerability inherent in, well, blogging. However, the things I write about here are things I have trouble discussing in real life unless I've recently taken OTC cough syrup or am with one of my college friends.
Sleep, when it comes, is the one place where I not only can be but have to be vulnerable. I'm not a pretty sleeper. It's a fight that I have almost every night, and when I finally do drop off it's, well, gruesome. I have a hard time breathing so apparently I either snore or sleep with my mouth open. I drool on everything. I talk and walk in my sleep. My pajamas are the most utilitarian, uninviting things in the world (I mean, wool socks.) I have bad or embarrassing dreams and they're audible.
Perversely enough, it's these weird, kind of gross realities of who I am that make me long to sleep next to someone, to find someone with whom I can truly let down my guard and be my sleepy, insomniac, sleepwalker self.
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