Daydream believer...

Ok it's 8:47PM (which I'm aware is a perfectly normal time to be awake for once).

It's been awhile since I've blogged. I've been sleeping (I hear the gasps echo through the world wide web). Don't get excited... it's been drug induced. Ok - I'M SORRY [insert McGruff the crime fighting dog infomercial here]. I've even failed at sleeping without some kind of artificial additive. I have gone back to taking Lunesta a few times a week. It wasn't even that I was falling asleep at work (yes even severe exhaustion doesn't induce sleep). It's more like I knew I was tired and was walking around in a dream-like state which doesn't work so well as you climb through the rungs of the corporate ladder.

So, now it's a normal hour and I'm awake wondering if I might be able to sleep naturally tonight. It now seems appropriate to tell you that comically enough, I think I'm married to a borderline narcoleptic. I've had him tested for thyroid issues multiple times and pored over the test results myself searching for some abnormality in his blood work. Surely it's impossible for one human being to a) sleep that much and b) fall asleep so quickly. It's like the back of his head and his eyelids are all magnetized to the pillow and the second they connect they're bonded for a minimum of 10 hours. To top it all off, he insists on always talking about how "tired he is."

I've often spent long spans of time staring at him (*yes, I'm aware that this seems crazy and like a scene out of Paranormal Activity) wondering how is brain can just shut down immediately like that and if perhaps he's not secretly an alien cyborg with an on and off switch sent as a test to see how human beings deal with emotional detachment.

I think in a past life I must have done some very bad things.

If I'm better this life do you think I'll sleep in the next? I guess I'll start with not resenting my husband for his ability to sleep literally in a wink.

Insomnia...a symptom of what exactly?

Ok. I just googled "insomnia" and up pops the link: "Chronic Insomnia Linked to Increased Risk of Death" ....that's just super.

At what point does this become an issue that warrants the many sleep coaches and doctors that are advertised I wonder?

It's 2.06AM as I begin this post. As I share that with you, I should also let you know that I am not one of those blessed individuals that works from home or has any control over their own schedule during the hours that one is normally awake. I am one of those people you pass in traffic on my way to my office trying to stay awake and act deeply interested in fulfilling my corporate duty.

I have no idea why or exactly when I stopped sleeping. I can only say that I haven't really slept well in many years. Of course this worries me but the commitment to self discovery in finding the root of the cause concerns me more than the insomnia itself.

I remember being a senior in high school and having insomnia the day before I left for college (if you know me and can do math, you immediately recognize that I must be very tired and also know how to effectively apply concealer). Somehow I knew my life would never be the same. At the young age of 17, I knew that the stage of my life in which I could be carefree had perhaps officially ended and was potentially lost forever.

I've heard people say that "self-awareness" is something that we should all work toward but as someone who is almost painfully self-aware I have to argue that there is an upside to oblivion.

Living in the moment and enjoying it is almost impossible when you are constantly reminded that change is on the horizon and not always for the better.

I recently saw a musician with the phrase "A Quiet Mind" tattooed on the back of his neck. Though this is a fashion statement that doesn't really go with my look, I have to admit the tattoo called out to me and meant something that begins the process of self-discovery that I have been dreading but must be addressed if I have hopes of ever sleeping again.

So my quest to stamp out my insomnia begins with the vision of a stranger's tattoo. It's like the white rabbit in The Matrix that I'm forced to follow. I suppose in starting this blog, I have taken the red pill. I hope you enjoy reading the rants of a troubled insomniac but most of all, I hope that at the end of the journey - I'll actually wake up refreshed.