Monday, May 12, 2014

Insomnia, Anagrams, and Sleepless Thought Processes


Sheep are way, way overrated.
We celebrated Mother's Day by staying at a night at a nearby town on a lake and treated ourselves to a lake view and a couple of meals out.  It was lovely.  Except for the part where I didn't sleep ALMOST AT ALL, ALL NIGHT.

This isn't really a surprise, because I've dealt with insomnia all my life.  I handle it by reading in bed or by getting up and making lists of everything that my brain keeps trying to remind me about.

What made the other night memorable is that every time I rolled over, my mind was working on a blog post using the word "INSOMNIA" as an anagram, totally without my permission.  Which must mean I'm creative even when I'm not awake, right? Or that my mind just never SHUTS UP.

This is what it sounds like to have insomnia.  Let me know if this sounds familiar.
________

1:35 a.m.  

OK.  Anagram for "insomnia".  "I" is for...what?...I?  I...Iiiii...can't sleep?  Yeah.  That works.  OK, next letter.

"N".  Hmm.  "N" is for....umm...No sleep for you?  OK.

What's the next letter?  "S".  I don't know.  Sleep?  I'm not good at these.  Shut UP.

My neck hurts.  This stupid hotel pillow is giving me a neck ache.

I could rip this pillow open and make like TWO WHOLE REGULAR HUMAN pillows out of it.

I wonder how they'd put that on our bill... "One destroyed pillow = $150.00".

I should have just brought my own pillow.

I wonder what that would look like, if I walked through the hotel carrying my pillow.  I'd look like a kid at a sleepover.

I should have brought my body pillow too, because you might as well bring EVERYthing you need.

I could wear footie pajamas to make it official.

Do they make adult footie pajamas? I think they do.  They'd probably be too warm, though.

I'm too warm right now.

2:20 a.m. 

That heater has been blowing on high for like 3 hours in this hotel room.

Now I can't hear anything but that HOTEL ROOM HEATER BLOWING ON HIGH.  It's drying out my eyeballs.

I have to go turn it down.  If I don't turn it down, we will possibly all be smothered by this continuously blowing hot air.

It's really loud, too.  How can everyone sleep through that racket? Maybe it's relaxing to them.  Like white noise.  Maybe it could drone me to sleep...

That's not relaxing at all.

OK.  I turned it down.  But the fan won't turn down.  Apparently that sound is what that fan sounds like all. the. time.  On ALL the settings.  But at least I think the TEMP is down.

Hopefully I didn't just turn on the A/C.  I don't know, because I was just randomly turning dials in the DARK.

Now in two hours we'll all be freezing.  And it will still be loud.

3:48 a.m.

Why is there a light on outside?  It's shining right in through that drape.  I swear it's shining right in my EYES.

Who left the drapes open?

I should have shut the drapes while I was up.

I wonder if it's quieter on the balcony?

No.  It's like 36 degrees out there.  Plus, if you go out there, you'll wake the whole family up opening the sliding door.

Maybe if they woke up and moved around a little, they'd snore less.

I wish I had ear plugs with me.  That might help.

No ear plugs.  Wow.  Are you a bad packer or what?  Now every single sound will be magnified a million times.  Especially that heater/air-conditioning unit that sounds like it's going to continue filling this room with air nonstop until we leave.

I wonder if you can get sick from too much hot heater air blowing into a hotel room? Probably not, but I bet it's pretty dehydrating.

Great.  Now I'm thirsty.

Wow, that bathroom door couldn't have squeaked any louder, and I loved ripping open that securely wrapped cellophane cup for my drink, in the dark.  And yet, no one woke up.  Amazing.

4:10 a.m.

I'm still too hot.  If I take off my pajama bottoms, the kids might notice and possibly wonder why I have no pants on, right?

I can not physically lay here for one more SECOND in these pants.

OK.  No pants is better.  I feel cooler already.

I should have gone while I was IN there...

If I get up and walk to the bathroom in just a shirt, what if my kids are awake?  I could be responsible for some terrible childhood issue caused by seeing your mother in no pants.

Tomorrow's Mother's Day, so it's not a good day for me to cause new issues.  It can wait til morning.

5:39 a.m. 

Is it is me, or is the sun coming up right now?  Why didn't I close the drape when I was up?

And...yes...there's the TV coming on at 7:30 a.m..  Tah-dah...MORNING EVERYONE!!!

Back to the anagram, I never seemed to get past the "S", so I thought I'd do it for real, now that I'm awake, (although not fully rested yet).  This is what an insomniac's night feels like:

I  -  I can't sleep.
N -  No sleep for me.
S  -  Some people are asleep and snoring, right now.
O  - OMG why can't I just SLEEP?
M  - Maybe if I put in ear plugs I won't hear anything.  Then I could sleep.
N  - No ear plugs available.
I  - I still can't sleep.
A  - Ahmigash...the sun is up.

Today it's finally lovely outside, the lawn needs mowed, and there are a million other things I should be doing, but my eyelid is developing a "tic", which means that what I need right now is a NAP.


14 comments:

  1. I used to have insomnia as a child. I don't anymore since I am now old enough to drink enough wine in the evening to pair with my melatonin and Benedryl to sleep like a log all the way through the night! God Bless whoever figured out how to ferment grapes!

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    1. I know right? I used to take Tylenol PM, which works great but didn't seem like a great long-term solution,so I haven't taken that since like last October. Straight shots of vodka or whiskey work too, but that's a whole other problem, lol. Or...just read in bed until my vision starts to get wiggly. That's my current plan.

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  2. Oh yes. I have lived this for more years than I care to count (must save all my math skills for calculating how many hours of sleep I WONT be getting). I think my favorite is when I try to systematically relax every muscle in my body. A great way to spend an hour NOT sleeping.

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    1. LOL--No kidding. I get my body relaxed alright, but then my brain is like, "You know what we haven't thought about in awhile? Bills. Yeah. Let's think about THOSE at 2 a.m."

      Not. Cool. Brain.

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  3. Oh sweetness...I feel your pain. I do.

    I still laughed at this, though.

    I walk around without pants in front of my kids all the time. Not naked or anything but a tshirt and underwear, yeah...I will do that

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    1. Oh yes. If a shirt is long enough, it will definitely qualify as a hangout outfit. :)

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  4. We are like the same person. I always take my own pillow, whether I am camping, sleeping at a hotel, or think I might be able to sleep in the car. Now I'm thinking next time I go to a hotel I should bring a humidifier, cause those things are really drying! I seriously relate to every single word you wrote, especially since I was just in a hotel with my kids last weekend. Which reminds me that I have a blog post to write!

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    1. Humidifier! Why didn't I think of THAT?

      Yeah, after a few hotel stays, the words "adjoining rooms" start to take on a brighter light, don't they?

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  5. Sadly, yes. That is me as well.

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    1. Don't you love people who say, "Well. Just try to SLEEP."

      Um. Yeah...TRIED THAT

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  6. I ALWAYS take my own pillows to hotels -- including my body pillow (because knees knocking together while you're trying to sleep just sucks). I also have to have my earplugs -- so don't think you're strange. I'm so obsessed with trying to get enough sleep I found this app that tracks it for me -- in one glance I can tell you how much sleep (or not) I've gotten on average in the past year. It's rather depressing. I just wish we didn't HAVE to sleep -- I'd be so much more productive if I had those hours to do other things.

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    1. Ah, that would be depressing...how much I have NOT slept in my life. It's making my eyelid twitch just typing that, lol. And YES to ear plugs--ahh, the sound of silence!

      I give up some nights and just go ahead and get stuff done, but usually my middle-of-the-night "stuff" consists of reading and making to-do-lists while sipping straight vodka--which seems like a better choice than Tylenol PM, right? Right??

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  7. I hate that feeling!!! It's so infuriating, which doesn't help cuz then you're mad and not sleepy.

    Kick-ass anagram, btw.

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    1. Heh heh, thanks Beth! I know, don't you love that feeling of "Great. Now I'm REALLY awake" when you realize you've just wasted 30 more minutes laying there being annoyed that you can't...sleep?

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