Archives for posts with tag: sleep
« Older Entries

Low Drama Insomnia

January 23, 2026 //
0

My sleep was poor last night. Frequently interrupted by one noise or another, but also sometimes just because I simply woke up for no obvious reason. It’s fine. I’ve had a problematic relationship with sleep all my life. I finally woke at a time sufficiently close to the time I generally get up that I went ahead and got up. Would it be coffee or walking? The forecast suggests coffee – another freezing morning. I dress and head out, hoping that I avoided waking anyone, and grateful that in spite of my restless night I’m not feeling groggy.

Each time I woke during the night, I’d turn over or shift the covers or fluff my pillow seeking new comfort, eventually returning to sleep (once waking from a deep sleep surprised to find myself waking; I had been dreaming I was awake, laying there in the darkness lol). I wasn’t stressed or anxious over being wakeful, it happens. Insomnia lost a lot of its power over me when I stopped being anxious about the insomnia itself, or the lost hours of sleep. (Now and then, if wakefulness overtakes me more thoroughly, I just get up, read or write or paint or meditate for awhile, but last night wasn’t that kind of night.) I woke often, returned to sleep eventually, and repeated that experience several times during the night, about every 90 minutes or so. I’m okay for most values of okay, in spite of that. I couldn’t get by on this kind of shitty sleep indefinitely (although I have in years past). I may be tired to the point of being fairly dull or actually stupid later today; I remind myself to get important cognitively dense tasks and work requiring focus knocked out early in the day.

Perspective is a big deal; the spiders in life are not actually as big as they sometimes look.

The restless night causes me less concern that this feeling lately that I “just don’t want to be part of any of this”, and a latent yearning to “walk away” from “all of it”. I know myself pretty well. There’s nothing specifically “wrong” such that resolving that would clear up this feeling, it’s more to do with just not being easily able to get a particular need met well in a way that satisfies it (a need for solitude and a break from emotional labor). I struggle to escape awareness of all the madness going on in the world, and every day there’s some new bit of unbelievable petty unfathomable craziness from the demented elder cohort leading the nation (the cruelty of this adminstration is astonishing and revolting). It stresses me out even to the minmal degree news reaches me at all. (I’m really trying to avoid it for my own sanity.) I’m still – to an extent – in a caregiving role, and present circumstances being what they are (economically, financially, socially…) I can’t just drop everything and check-in to a beachfront hotel, turn my notifications off for a a long weekend, and just paint, and write, and be alone. (In 2023, I could get an off-season room on the coast for $40-$50 per night, right on the beach. Now even off-season rooms are $200 per night at old rundown motels on the other side of the highway, with no view or beach access.) It’s definitely too cold (for me) for camping, too. The time is not now. I’m tied to this experience by the requirements of work and life, the limitations of my circumstances, and I’m reluctant to tell people I care about to fuck off (for awhile) and just leave me alone. I want very much to meet my need for solitude without causing anyone pain or suffering or hurt feelings (creating chaos and drama while seeking to escape chaos and drama defeats the purpose entirely). Anyway, I’m painfully aware that regardless, I’d be dragging my baggage with me, and it is in fact something within myself that I’m seeking to evade, escape, or “fix”. Reliably. I sigh at the inner recognition and acknowledgement. So… what to do about it, though? I sip my coffee and reflect on that awhile.

As with any choice, there are verbs involved.

I find myself feeling sympathetic towards the Anxious Adventurer – this “self-awareness”, and “self-reflection” stuff isn’t without its challenges, and this human journey that is so much about self-discovery and growth is not an easy one. We are each having our own experience on a journey without a map.

Walk your own path, choose your own verbs, and build your own practices.

It is Friday. The weekend is ahead. I breathe, exhale, and relax. A week of working from my employer’s San Francisco office follows the weekend (I fly down Tuesday, return home Friday night). I smile at myself for the tempting thought that I might get some solitary time, if only in the very early morning and in the evenings after work, while I am in San Francisco, but it didn’t work out that way last time at all. The opportunity to collaborate with colleagues in a shared space resulted in longer work hours, and no time alone of note. The company puts us up in a comfortable clean hotel, and I’m grateful for that. I will probably sleep well, but I don’t expect much solitary time, or leisure unless I make a point to carve out time for myself and set very firm boundaries. I smirk at myself knowingly; it’s a coin toss. That’s why I keep practicing; I clearly need the practice. lol

Perspective is sometimes about the view from a singular moment. If I stand somewhere else, doesn’t my perspective change? 🙂

I sigh to myself. I’m okay for most values of “okay”. Life is pretty good, most of the time. Hell, I may not have slept well, but the morning is not as cold as forecast, my headache isn’t bad, my arthritis pain is well-managed – I feel okay. Things could be worse. A lot worse. I’m bitching that I don’t have everything, and can’t satisfy every need I have or soothe every emotion I feel. Shit, we’ve all got problems, right? This journey isn’t effortless or infinitely pleasant, and our “second dart suffering” is the larger share of our suffering for much of our mortal life – and we can make choices that reduce that a lot. I breathe, exhale, and relax, and make a point to let go from clinging to my suffering. In this moment, here, now, things are pretty much fine. Good coffee. Warm cafe. Pleasant music in the background. A weekend just a few hours away. Less than usual physical pain. What is there to suffer over, really? I mean, right here, right now? I’m among the very fortunate; I have a paying job, a cozy home, medical care, potable drinking water, and there are not bombs dropping here, nor am I at high risk of being assaulted or kidnapped by the government thugs roaming our communities in masked packs. Viewed that way, it’s more than a little annoying and self-indulgent to sit here with my hot coffee on a cold day bitching about not being able to get away (from my pleasant life)! I chuckle softly to myself; I am a human being, being quite human.

My coffee has gone cold. Tepid, at least. I don’t really care; I notice and move on. The clock keeps ticking. The music plays on. Daybreak will soon touch the horizon. The pings on my consciousness of various notifications start piling up. Seems like a good moment to begin again. I wonder where this path leads?

Once we choose our path, we’ve still got to walk it. The journey is the destination. 🙂
Tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories 2024 Election, Allegories, Anxiety, Brain Injury, breathe, Free Will, gratitude, health, Healthy Living, meditation, Mindfulness, Moments, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Sleepless Nights, The Art of Being, War and News of War, winter, women, Words

Dark of Night

October 5, 2024 //
0

It’s shortly after midnight. I’m awake, not because it’s Friday night and I stayed up late doing something. Nope. I went to bed a bit early, in spite of the somewhat noisier Friday night guests, and crashed pretty hard. I slept deeply for a little while, but woke several times to discover I’d pulled my CPAP mask off in my sleep. Weird. I’m not surprised that woke me each time that it did; I struggle to fall asleep without the mask these days, in spite of it giving me occasional nightmares of having to wear MOPP gear. Not an experience I ever enjoyed, and not a bad dream I want to have. Tonight wasn’t about that, though, it was just weird. lol

I woke a little while ago, and my consciousness roused sufficiently to recognize more than that I had removed my CPAP mask – I recognized the likely cause(s). Acid reflux. Headache. Osteoarthritis. The exceptionally quiet darkness after a rather noisy evening. Now I’m awake. I took an antacid. I got a drink of water. I put on a capsaicin patch where my pain was worst. I took something for my headache. I got up and stood on the balcony looking out into the velvety dark night, out across the bay, feeling the cool air on my skin, and looking out into the night for some little while. No moon. Few stars – fog? Mist? Clouds? Across the bay, most of the homes along the Salishan Spit are dark tonight, which surprises me at this relatively early hour. No bobbing lights of shallow bottom boats on the bay. The tide is coming in. I stand awhile, listening, watching, embracing the solitude and the darkness.

It’s been a good couple days of painting. I’ve got another day of it, tomorrow. I miss my Traveling Partner – I’ll be happy to head home Sunday. I stand in the quiet darkness wondering how to bring “more of this” to my experience of life at home. I often wake during the night, at home, but rarely get up or doing anything much about it. Shared living subtly discourages it; I don’t want to wake anyone else. When I live alone, I often do something more than roll over and go back to sleep. Funny thing is, when I’m living alone, I don’t easily “just go back to sleep” – so getting up makes sense, and I do. No stress to it, just a way of living. When I am sharing a living arrangement, I tend not to be awake enough long enough to bother. I go back to sleep because going back to sleep makes sense. There’s no effort to it, these days, and no anxiety to being awake. I don’t actually know why there’s a difference in these experiences (for me). Perhaps living with my Traveling Partner simply finds me feeling somehow safer when I wake in the night, and more able to return to sleep because of it. I don’t generally “toss and turn” if I wake… I just go back to sleep, maybe after getting up to pee, or get a drink of water. Weird. I chuckle quietly to myself, that’s a known thing; humans are weird. lol

…The “more of this”, though, that I’d like to bring home with me, isn’t about the wakefulness in the night. I’m satisfied to roll over and go back to sleep, at home, in my own bed. I’m not grousing about that at all. It’s more… the art, the sense of creative presence and inspiration, the subtle feeling of freedom to “do whatever I want” in all the minutes of my day. Perhaps this really is best left to vacations and time away, alone… it sounds pretty “selfish” on paper, and a somewhat adolescent perspective on adult freedom – untethered from the very real responsibilities of adulthood that most definitely exist. I sit with the thought awhile, after I step back in from the chilly darkness of the balcony. I think about compromise. I think about choices.

I’ll go back to bed soon. I’m already both tired and sleepy. I’m only awake because my thoughts continue to meander wakefully, and I’m honestly sort of encouraging that, in spite of my awareness that sleep could easily overtaken me, given a chance. It feels like a luxury to enjoy the quiet of the night. The world sleeps, the moment is mine…

Tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories Allegories, art and the artist, autumn, Brain Injury, breathe, Free Will, gratitude, health, Healthy Living, inspiration, meditation, Moments, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Sleepless Nights, The Art of Being

Expectations Go So Wrong

July 31, 2024 //
0

It’s late. Or, it’s early. I suppose it’s a matter of perspective – and expectations. I expected to be asleep right now. From my perspective, it’s quite late. Too early to be awake, by far. It’s just a bit after midnight. I could be sleeping right now… I expected to be sleeping right now… I am not sleeping.

The guest in the room next door (or perhaps directly above me, it’s hard to tell) has left the fan on in their bathroom for what now seems an unreasonable amount of very noisy time. It surprises me that anyone could be sleeping through this ridiculously noisy fan. I’m certainly not. I’m quite wide awake.

I breathe, exhale, relax… and try to “get used to” the noise so I can maybe go back to sleep… (Am I even actually still tired, after “sleeping in” yesterday, and multiple delightful naps today?) I’m not adding annoyance or any particular amount of stress to being wakeful over the noise of a bathroom fan that is not mine, so… I could potentially go back to sleep at any point, once I’ve managed to get past being wakened by this noise. By itself, the noise could be super aggravating (once upon a time definitely would have been). For now, it’s just… well, I’m awake. That’s it. lol I’m awake, and I expected to be asleep.

I sip on a bottle of icy cold water. It’s refreshing. Eventually, I’ll go back to sleep. A couple more hours of sleep, and I’ll wake, shower, have coffee, have breakfast, and get packing to return home. I miss my Traveling Partner. I’m eager to be home. I feel rested and recharged, and were it not for this rather annoyingly timed bit of human misadventure, my away time has been quite nearly perfect (from my perspective). Fucking hell, I do wish someone would turn that fan off, though. LOL I keep sipping on this bottle of water; it is both too late and too early for more coffee.

I stepped outside on the balcony for some air, and it was delightful. I could see the stars – so many stars – and even the Milky Way. Wow. I stood there quietly, breathing in the cool ocean air, listening to the waves.

…Why is there always some asshole leaving a bathroom fan on in a hotel room??…

I sigh, and let go of my expectations. I breathe, exhale, and relax. I’m here. Now. Yeah, there’s a fan going, and that’s not ideal, but it will, eventually, pass. Probably. Maybe. Or I’ll get used to it vibrating noisily in the background. I laugh to myself, and put on my noise canceling headphones for a while. I could probably sleep in these, they’re pretty comfortable…

…I’ll try this sleep thing again…

Tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories Allegories, Brain Injury, breathe, forgiveness, Frustration, gratitude, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, pain, Perspective, Practices, Sleepless Nights, Summer, The Art of Being

There’s Not Enough Coffee

December 28, 2023 //
0

I’m already on my second coffee, and will likely have a third. Maybe a fourth. I’m so tired… There’s not enough coffee to resolve this amount of fatigue.

My Traveling Partner woke me during the wee hours. He couldn’t sleep. It was not quite 3 a.m. He was supremely frustrated with being unable to sleep, and trying anything to figure out why he wasn’t sleeping. His injury was making him uncomfortable, too, and he was clearly vexed and feeling that the lack of restful sleep would slow his recovery. Sleep isn’t easy for everyone, and it can be a tough puzzle to “figure out”. I know this first hand, and even in this very moment. Since having been awakened, I wasn’t going to find sleep easily again myself (if at all).

Hoping to minimize any further possible disruptions to my Traveling Partner’s potential to go back to sleep, I went ahead and dressed and went on in to the office. Options. (Flexible hours for the win!) Fuck, I’m so tired, though. I tried unsuccessfully to nap on a couch in the break area… strange space, uncomfortable couch, no CPAP machine, the lights and noise of the city… it wasn’t happening. So. Work, then? Work. And coffee.

…Great commute into the city, though… no traffic at all. LOL

Getting my ass up, dressed, and out of the house when my partner can’t sleep is, as he points out himself, “just a band-aid”, not really a solution. What the hell is the solution to poor quality sleep? The real answer? I don’t know; I still suffer from poor quality sleep on a regular basis – I just don’t happen to deal with snoring as the cause of that experience, nor worry that my snoring is keeping my partner awake, since I started on a CPAP machine. I’m still light and noise sensitive. I still struggle with nightmares. I still sometimes find myself wakeful during the night for no obvious reason. I still need more sleep than I find myself able to get. The only piece of the puzzle I’ve ever truly solved was eliminating my anxiety, frustration, and anger over being unable to sleep. I used to respond to lost sleep with tears and fury. Tossing and turning. Punching pillows. Restlessly banging about my living space frustratedly trying to coax myself into returning to sleep by creating more fatigue, somehow. Enacting peculiar “bed time” rituals like getting a drink of water, then going back to bed. Sometimes something worked, mostly nothing did (or does; if I’m not going to sleep, I’m not going to sleep). The stress over it made it much worse. That I was able to ease, and pretty much resolve completely. Now, when I’m wakeful, I just… am awake. I meditate. Read quietly. Maybe write. Get up and have a quiet cup of chamomile tea, perhaps. It just “doesn’t bother me” the way it used to. This was a choice built on practices, built on acceptance, and built on non-attachment. That much I managed, and it has worked nicely.

…But I don’t think that counts as a solution to poor quality sleep…

…And I really really wish I could truly help my partner resolve his sleep challenges, especially if I am any cause of those! Whether I am or not… I’d just like him to be able to get the sleep he needs to feel well and rested every day!

There are a ton of commonplace recommendations regarding sleep hygiene from any number of foundations, YouTube channels, Dr recommendations, sleep clinics, sleep-oriented businesses, and bloggers… some of them likely work for some people. All of them probably work for someone. (Chances are none of them work for everyone.) I practice many of them routinely and they have become habit for me. It helped. Stressing over the lack of sleep never helped at all, and I suspect did much to make things worse. Learning not to do that was a big deal, and it was my Traveling Partner who pushed me to do so, wisely pointing out that the stress about not sleeping was causing me to lose more sleep.

I don’t have any solutions – but I know how much sleep matters, and I know a lot of us struggle to get the sleep we need. Are you having sleep difficulties? What have you done about it? I’d be interested to know what has worked for you.

Coffee #2 is finished, and just a memory. It’s time to make a third and try to push through the fatigue on caffeine and pure persistence. It’s time to begin again.

Tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories anger, Anxiety, breathe, forgiveness, Free Will, Frustration, health, Healthy Living, Love, meditation, more than a little bit of bitching, Perspective, Practices, Sleepless Nights, The Art of Being, winter

Just Tired

December 27, 2023 //
0

I’m tired. The day started poorly, at least initially. (It’s fine now.) My Traveling Partner was worried about me and woke me from what to me felt like a very deep, sound sleep in the midst of detailed dreams. It was rather near my usual wake-up time (about 90 minutes too early) and I could not go back to sleep. I woke feeling groggy, confused, fussy, irritable, and startled. This was less than ideal. I went ahead and got up for the day. I was going to head out immediately so he could just go back to bed himself, although I definitely wasn’t fully alert, yet. He invited me to stay and have coffee together, which sounded pretty good; there would not be any cafe’s open at that hour, and driving into the city without having some coffee sounded pretty crappy. So…

We began again. We enjoyed our morning coffee together and watched a couple videos. It was a pleasant way to start the day. No regrets.

I will say… although I wish no one would ever wake me while I’m sleeping soundly… I sure wouldn’t be the one to insist that someone who is worried about me as I slept take no action to ensure I’m okay. That seems fairly unreasonable, and possibly actually foolish. If my partner woke me at 03:30 in the morning and asked me to wake up just to hang out with him because he was feeling lonely, I totally would. (I mean, keeping it real, I might be a bit annoyed at first. lol) I’d definitely expect him to wake me if the house was on fire or something, too. I just really wanted to sleep (because I already was) and waking up was so hard. I’m not that good at sleeping well, and it’s hard to let sleep go when it does happen. I’m fine, though, for most values of fine. Just… definitely tired.

G’damn I am tired this morning, though. lol Although my Traveling Partner seemed certain I’d “probably gotten enough sleep”, mostly based on when I retired for the evening, I did read for a little while, and I was up once during the night. My tracker suggests I got less than 6 hours. Not ideal, but I’ll get by on that and I should certainly be safe to drive home at the end of the work day… it’s not like losing sleep is so common any more. I’m generally getting enough sleep these days.

…I’m having trouble getting my shit together for the work in front of me…

I yawn and stare into the glow of the monitor vacantly for awhile. So tired. I try to shake it off. I drink more coffee. Even the utterly average office coffee will do the job I need it to do, this morning. I make another cup and make a point of trying to drink it before it gets cold.

I sigh out loud in this quiet room. It’s not yet quite daybreak, but the sky has begun shifting from black to a dark moody blue gray. I guess it’s time to begin again.

Tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories Allegories, Brain Injury, breathe, forgiveness, Free Will, Frustration, gratitude, health, Healthy Living, Love, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Sleepless Nights
« Older Entries