Why? One word, yet such a powerful question. Why are we here? Why God, why? Well if you have the answer to that you let me know. My “why” is little less loaded. Why am I blogging? Why am I entering this already overpopulated world of a people talking but not really having anything to say? Why? Short answer, insomnia.
For the better part of my twenties I’ve been an insomniac. On any given night (sans drugs) I sleep maybe 3 hours. Not a constant 3 hours, but 3 hours in total. For those of you that have never had to suffer through this hell let me enlighten you. To roll over at in bed in complete darkness with the only light coming from your alarm clock. Those tortuous red numbers gleaming back at you. Constantly reminding you that in just a few hours you’ll need to get up and go to work, a day of sleepless work. You turn your back to this enemy and try…try..TRY to fall asleep. It’s no good, you are unequivocally awake. Not drowsy, not tired, not rested, awake. And brother you ain’t going to sleep. Try as you might, focus, count sheep. To no avail. It’s almost surreal. Your body some how knows it needs sleep. Every inch of you wants to sleep. But there you lay. Eyes wide open, hopeless. Now multiply that average night by ten years. Good times.
Now my insomnia is not a medical issue. There is nothing physically keeping me from sleep. In my case it’s all in my head. For as long as I can remember when I hit that pillow my brain goes into overdrive. Thoughts upon thoughts upon thoughts. It’s like a broadband internet connection, it’s always on. But at bedtime my brain logs on. I can’t help it, I can’t turn it off.
My simple solution for many years was to sleep with the television on. If I could distract myself from my thoughts long enough I’d have a small window to fall asleep. But unfortunately marriage but an end to that method. My wife can’t fall asleep with the tv on. But hey, it is better that only one of us doesn’t sleep as opposed to both of us.
Solution two, good old fashioned drugs. I’ve done them all. Every “PM” pill known to man, allergy medicine, perscrption medicine. And yes, they all work. But the downside is they really mess with you the next day. Sometimes no sleep beats the walking dead. And worse I think I’m really starting to get dependent on them. That’s not good.
That brings me to my original thought. Why blog? Well I’ve been seeing a cognitive therapist for the past several months. Working out some stuff for the better. I highly recommend it. Anyhow my Doc gave me the idea to keep a notebook next to my bed and write down all those wonderful random thoughts they fire off deep inside my cortex. That way when sleepy time comes around I’d have my restlessness out of my system and could concentrate on just sleep. That’s fine in theory but A:my wife would not appreciate me sitting up all night hunched over a lamp fervently writing down my every thought. B:I’d have carpel tunnel within the hour. C:why keep these gems to myself when I can share with them with the entire world. That only makes sense, right?
So here we go, another blog is born.
