Sometimes I have a hard time staying asleep.
I fall asleep but then wake up, sometimes less than an hour later. And then I start worrying about being able to go back to sleep, which is not so helpful according to the sleep experts, who encourage you to meditate and think happy, sleepy thoughts, not anxious ones.
When I am having a hard time sleeping, it feels like my brain purposefully catches itself right as I’m nodding off and stops the process. Notices and stops. Notices and stops. It’s the strangest thing. It’s the thing that I do not want to do but that I do, on those nights when I wake up and can’t go back to sleep.
There was a night last week when I didn’t get as much sleep as I wanted. It made the next day when I had a full day of work a little difficult. Difficult, but not impossible. I was able to function, and it wasn’t my easiest day ever, but it wasn’t the worst either. This is something I need to remember. Because I can tend to catastrophize about how awful sleeplessness is when I’m awake in bed for what feels like hours, thinking about how my life will absolutely fall apart if I don’t get to sleep soon.
In reality? It won’t fall apart. I will be tired, but I’ll also be fine.
So I am grateful for the sleep I eventually got that night, and grateful for all the nights this week and for the months (possibly years) when I haven’t had sleep issues at all. I’m grateful that these periods help me see how I can make sleep an idol, how they remind me that sleep is a gift, not to be taken lightly. And a night or two of poor sleep almost always results in a lovely night the following night. I can look forward to that, if I can stop the worry train from derailing me.
It’s confounding, how these mini-episodes of insomnia creep up, seemingly from out of nowhere. Maybe there is a reason, though. Maybe the thought twitches that keep me awake are somehow a rough gift, because they force me to feel things (like grief) that I would rather avoid. I do a good job of repressing grief in my daytime hours. But at night, when I can’t sleep? I have no choice but to feel it.
It’s not hard to find examples of things to grieve now: anything Trump related which includes tariffs and mass deportations and just general idiocy and lunacy. It is not only the political situation, though. There is sadness from other things.
My wise friend reminds me to “Halt,” not to make big decisions when I am “Hungry, Angry, Lonely or Tired.” I have been tired lately (also hungry. And sometimes lonely). Tonight? I’m mostly tired. I’m tempted to toss this entire post in a hypothetical trash can, because it feels raw and vulnerable. And yet? I had an online class this morning where the presenter talked about the power of “Letting Go.” Apparently, it’s a sign of growth when we can let go of our attachment to outcomes: to learn to speak our truth without fear of how others will react, to show up as our true selves with all of our weaknesses and trust that we are loved and accepted, just as we are.
For me? To remember that this is true, even on nights when I have a hard time sleeping. And also true on nights (like tonight) when I am struggling to finish this blog post and do not love this ending but am going to go with it because it is late and time for bed.
Good night, friends. Sweet dreams.
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