This Post Brought To You By Insomnia

I can’t sleep. Like ever. It has been at least two weeks since I have had a full, restful, uninterrupted eight hours. Or seven. Or six. Hell, I’d be happy with five hours of sleep, but that ain’t happening either. I’ve been averaging four measly, pitifully nauseating, excruciatingly cruel hours of sleep a night.

Martha Stewart sleeps only four hours a night and she’s a multimillionaire, but she’s also a convicted felon, so it’s hard to know how this is going to work out for me. Donald Trump also sleeps only four hours a night and he’s the president, but he’s also the worst president in the history of history. So, again, this does not necessarily bode well for me and my insomnia. Just know that if I start combing my hair in a strange fashion it’s from the lack of sleep.

I’d love to say I’m spending all my free time weaving intricate tapestries or writing the great American novel or solving the world’s energy crisis, but I’m not. I’m mostly just lying there contemplating my navel or trying to figure out why Buzzfeed thinks I live in New Mexico based upon my Sonic order. Doesn’t an order of onion rings and cherry limeade scream North Carolina? I don’t know. Maybe I threw the whole thing off by choosing the french toast sticks.

Perhaps I should use all this time to come up with a new invention, like the Hurricane Spin Scrubber. It’s like an electric toothbrush on steroids and it’s apparently going to change everyone’s lives. We’re never going to have to strain to get rid of soap scum again. I’d get one, because no one hates straining to get rid of soap scum more than me, but I always think about what happens when I take my electric toothbrush out of my mouth to spit. Toothpaste goes everywhere, including on my glasses and the bathroom mirror. I guarantee that is happening with the Spin Scrubber, toxic cleaners in people’s faces all over this great land, even as we speak. It should be noted that I’m receiving no compensation from The Hurricane Spin Scrubber. I’m just completely fascinated this thing exists.

 

If I had more sleep I’d be less prone to deception. My husband knows this and revels in my weakened state. Just this weekend he somehow managed to get me to walk around our apartment complex carrying a box the size of Texas all while I was in my pajamas, even after I specifically said I refused to do that. “Just help me carry it down the stairs,” he said with a coy smile. He assured me no one in the breezeway would see me in sweatpants and a tank top, sneakers with no socks, hair wildly dispersed, mascara and drool embedded into my left cheek. We got down all three flights and, in my exhausted haze, I failed to realized he just kept going until we were almost at the garbage dumpster. At least I had the box to hide behind.

The cat loves when I can’t sleep. She thinks it’s party time. She drops all her worn out, chewed up, smelly and rotten cat toys on my torso as I flop from one side to the next foolishly believing I just need to change positions to make it all better. Sadly, there is no better position. They all suck and end in heartbreak. No heartbreak for Jojo, though. It’s party time for Jojo.

My husband can sleep through anything. I’ve often considered waking him just so I can ask him how he sleeps through my sleeplessness. Wouldn’t help matters. He’d just roll back over and go to sleep quickly and then I’d have to kick him in the shins repeatedly. That would likely bring me no joy either, for he’d just roll over and go back to sleep again and the vicious cycle would continue.

My husband can also nap. Same with Jojo. Who the hell cares if we’re up all night? Just take a nap! Refresh yourself! Oh, fuck off. When my husband naps he wakes up like he’s had a full night’s sleep, refreshed and ready to take on the world. When I nap, I wake up nauseous and confused. Always, some part of my hair is glued to my cheek from drool and I’m never quite sure what year it is. I’d rather refresh myself by shooting you the bird when you tell me to take a nap.

I want to be productive when I have these sleepless nights, but ‘they’ say not to. ‘They’ are the incredible internet life wizards and ‘they’ know what is best for you. ‘They’ know I should never get out of bed and do another activity. ‘They’ know I shouldn’t look at my phone because the light is going to upset my circadian rhythm. ‘They’ say I shouldn’t look at the clock. ‘They’ say I should just lie there and wait for sleep to come and it will. I have no idea if any of this is true. I’m too tired to do any research.

The silver lining to all this insomnia is coffee. Coffee is the greatest thing to ever have been invented. You may think it’s the polio vaccine or the Snuggie, but no, it’s coffee. I love coffee and, coffee, it loves me. It loves me more than my husband who just rolls over and goes to sleep any damn time he wishes even though he knows I am painfully suffering from a devastating loss of sleep. Coffee understands. I should have married coffee.

I discovered that one of my fish is a murderer. That has nothing to do with my insomnia, but one of the side effects of insomnia is lack of focus and my attention was diverted for a second and that thought popped in my head. Yeah, he’s full on eating all our cherry shrimp, which were $4 a pop, by the way. So, here I thought I was the murderer. All my fish were dying and I took it all so personally, but he’s the true assassin and now I have to wait for him to die before I get anymore fish.

‘They’ say you should get an aquarium to relax yourself so you sleep better at night. I think ‘they’ fail to take into account that you may get a homicidal fish that will ruin your life by making you think you’re killing all the fish when you aren’t. How the hell am I supposed to sleep when I am haunted by all those tiny crustacean bodies I have to scoop and flush? I actually have no idea if ‘they’ think having an aquarium will help you sleep. ‘They’ say one side effect of insomnia is hyperbole. I have that. ‘They’ also say another side effect of insomnia is not knowing how to end a blog post written about insomnia. I have that too.

 

*Featured image courtesy of Pixabay.