Insomnia

June 25, 2022

I’m not sure what happened. I can recount the sequence, but there’s not a specific reason to be found here.

Last night: I simply didn’t sleep.

I fell asleep a little early, after dinner. We tend to eat late, so it was close to 9:30 PM for me. I recall being woken up, gently, around 1:00 AM, with Liz telling me I needed to brush my teeth and officially head to bed.

Once under the covers, I was on my phone for a while. And then that while went on for a little longer. And then a little longer.

At some point, I got a “low battery” warning, letting me know I was at 20%. And then another warning at 10%. And then another warning.

By this time, I had been up for a few hours and it was close to 4:00 AM. I had set my phone down once or twice, but picked it up soon after it became clear I wasn’t sleepy at all.

With my phone’s battery nearly dead, I closed my eyes and tried not to think of anything at all. I was in bed for about an hour, when I finally decided to give up and got myself out of bed circa 5:00 AM.

This was a very unusual night for me. I don’t have anything particularly stressful in my life. Nothing’s wrong, per se. I just… couldn’t fall asleep. At all.

And so right now, I’ve been awake since 1:00 AM and never slept at all. I’ve had a few spells where I felt a little sleepy, but I fought against taking a nap (figuring I’d make things worse, and needed to power through).

Today feels like a travel day, when you’re trying to battle jet lag on the first day in a foreign country. The idea of sleep is attractive, but you know somewhere deep down it’s a bad, bad idea.

For someone like me (who has sleep apnea), sleep tends to come fairly quickly/easily. For it not to come at all is… very, very weird. Today was a bit of a haze.

[photo via Jp Valery]