Let's raise a glass to Sleep[Aids]

I'd like to take this opportunity to apologize for going ahead and creating a new blog and then never posting in it. Ever.

The thing is, I've been pretty booked. Re-learning how to sleep. At night. Like a normal person.

And then this past weekend things got pretty crazy when my upstairs neighbor got wasted and threw a pumpkin through my dining room window.

But that's another story.

It's been about a year since I slept normally. Coincidentally, it's also been about a year since the murder. A year since I started leaving more lights on. A year since I lined up all my seasons of Friends next to my TV and started playing them all night long, waking every few hours to the "dun-da-da-da da-da-da da-da" of the menu screen. A year since my pre-disposition to inherited anxiety suddenly awoke in full force. A year since I lost the ability to CALM THE FUCK DOWN.

I mean, don't get me wrong. It's not like I haven't had a single night's sleep in a whole year. But if it happens infrequently enough that I wake up in wonder and awe and say to myself, "oh my god I think I actually SLEPT last night!", then SOMETHING IS WRONG.

Getting to the root of what that something is has been the bigger issue.

For the first six months of sleepless nights, I hardly even took notice. Sure, I was tired all the time, but I was also staying out late and getting up early. It never even crossed my mind to question why my few hours of sleep were never really sleep, but instead just restless tossing. I just waited until I arrived at my job as a nanny, and then snuggled up with the bay-bay, his hot little breath calming my own breathing and knocking me into deep unconciousness.

But when I got the job at the Weekly and suddenly had to face not being able to sleep on the job, my body was thrown for a loop. And I became very aware of the fact that my sleep at night was anything but.

And so I started going to bed earlier.

HaHA! Look at me! The innocent insomniac who did not realize that not being able to sleep has NOTHING TO DO with what time you go to bed!

So there I lay in bed. Wide fucking awake.

And you know what's really good for anxiety-ridden insomnia? More anxiety.

Oh my god I'm still not asleep. If I don't fall asleep right now, I won't get the full amount I need to feel rested in the morning. Oh my god I'm going to be late to work again. And shit, I have that meeting tomorrow and I'm going to yawn all the way through it. And fuck, guess what, I'm still not asleep.

It was around May that I said fuck it and started taking Tylenol PM.

GOOD GOD ABOVE! Who invented Tylenol PM? I fucking love Tylenol PM. It is my new drug of choice. By far.

But let's face it, it's not a solution. It's basically the same as drinking a half bottle of red wine each night before bed. Not that I'm judging anyone who does that. [Cheers to you!] But let's be honest, it's not like it's real sleep. It's drugged out, feeling a tiny bit stoned in the morning, sleep.

Which can be nice. I'm not totally opposed to feeling stoned in the morning...

But this week I decided that NO. NO MORE DRUGGED OUT STONED AM SLEEP! Just real sleep!

And do you even know how much effort that takes? Monitering your water intake and exercising the apropriate amount each and every evening and setting alarms to make sure you eat all your meals at normal hours and stopping all activity precisely one half hour before your ideal sleep time?

I don't work that way.

But for the past week and a half, I've been trying it. And while my results are thus far inconclusive, I can tell you what I do know and that is this: Re-learning how to sleep allows no time for blogging.

And so...

Goodnight?