Insomnia

I had dinner a few nights ago with friends. Among the attendees was a 92 year old woman. It was a lovely meal, genuine conviviality and all the pleasantries. The conversation took a turn towards my sleeping patterns of late.
I need to give a bit of history here…

I’ve always been a professional sleeper. I’ve just been given that trait. Whether it is on the back of a motorcycle, or on a concrete driveway in the summer. Sleep, I can.
Until of course, the black days of relapse. The 28 day treatment stay really squashed that gift. The gift that you can go to bed at night without the aid of anything, anyone. But the pushers in treatment had me so loaded up on this and that and I really believe they stole my gift and had no conscience about it either. Pfizer gets rich-what’s the harm?
Anyway, it was then that I had to take a pill to fall asleep at night. This nightmare-ish cycle continued until one day I just said; “ENOUGH.”
Enough pills. I want to take back my old habit. Not the drinking one. The sleeping one. So as any good pseudo-doctor would, I took myself off of all and every pill I was taking.
Whew. What a relief. But, as you may have guessed, I still couldn’t sleep.
Tylenol Pm worked. For a couple of months, so did Benadryl. But sleep is still sticking out its tempting tongue.
And then dinner. The sleep talk. The 92 year old woman who knows me not.
She looked at me with these crystal blue eyes of clarity and said; “what are you thinking about that is keeping you awake, honey?”
I paused.
Yes, I have heard the committee that meets in my mind at night. A million times over. But never had I really taken a look at why. Why is my mind, when trying to sleep, like being behind enemy lines?
Of course. There it is. The answer is right living.
The things that steal away my rest are the things that I’m doing wrong. Or inappropriately, or without conscience, or selfishly and fearfully. I’m certainly not lying there at night humming the theme to the Sound Of Music. It’s that wretched conscience again. The one that ebbs and flows to match my disdain.
Wake up, Dee!
Live right-sleep well.
My thanks to the teacher who appeared when the student was ready…My thanks.

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 13th, 2006 at 10:52 am and is filed under Deetails. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.