Sleepless… in Neepawa

There was a popular, mushy movie, ‘Sleepless in Seattle’, leading us to believe in the possibility of some positive outcome to sleepless nights. It’s not working out that way for me…

Insomnia has long been a part of my vocab and my reality. The worst years, so far, were the years of menopause. I would drop into an exhausted sleep around midnight, waken at one thirty, fall back asleep around five or a bit later for extra fun, only to need to be up and ‘at em ‘ by seven. Night after sleepless night. And I functioned at home and at work, and I didn’t kill anyone!

I have stopped checking my fitbit app, which shows how much I sleep, how deeply I sleep and what the national average of sleep is for people my age; old people! On the national average I’m not comparing too badly, but the night’s rest, the average night’s rest, isn’t what I desire. Getting to sleep is a routine, like most folks. My pillow has to be my pillow, and perfectly fluffed and plumped. The blanket as to be just so, and then, after reading for a reasonable amount of time– reasonable takes into consideration the time I head to bed and the time I need to get up– so that is a variable. And then, the digital clock glows three-ish… Sometime around three I awaken. On a very good night, I use the washroom, get a drink of water and fall back asleep. Not often enough!! It is not unusual for me to get up, read a bit, check on facebook, derive comfort by the number of other accounts that are active that forsaken hour of the night, warm a glass of milk, play a few games and try to seduce sleep to be my companion. Some mornings, my eyes feel sand filled, and my limbs leaden, but a home brewed cup of coffee invigorates, stimulates and enables me to face the day!

I am aware I have lamented my sleep patterns, my lack of deep sleep, with you in previous columns. I do take comfort that it is possible our ancestors had these mid night waking hours as a part of their natural pattern, and only civilization and work weeks altered that, by necessity.

So, what have I learned from this life lesson? Sleep is highly overrated? Nope, I value it. I have learned to accept being awake. The more desperately I attempt to fall back asleep, the wider awake and frustrated I become! I have known for most of my life that I am not a numbers person, words are my strength. And so, I play word games on my hand held devices, yes, plural. There are several that I prefer, Canuckle– decidedly Canadian five letter words– Octordle and Sequence, both five letter scrabble type words, and Septle, creating the desired seven letter word, followed by a six letter word, and concluding with a five letter word. Truthfully, there are times when I resort to the Scrabble dictionary before I get the correct answers. With the hand held electronic devices, I can find many ways to maintain my sanity in the wee smalls...