You Snooze You Win

 Last week I stayed up for 36 hours. Not in total and not,  I would like to point out, on purpose. I woke up one morning and was still awake 36 hours later. I suffer from insomnia. Last night I didn't sleep at all again. So I've been up since yesterday morning. I'm tired. Just not tired enough to fall asleep naturally. Even when I can sleep I've not been sleeping much, a few scattered hours, here and there. I lie in the dark, willing myself to sleep, which never works. Sleep happens when you least expect it, when you're distracted by some flickering liminal thing, and you let go and drift off after it, like Alice down a rabbit-hole. Sleep is unconscious, it's what happens when you're busy not making plans to fall asleep. It creeps up on you, a benign Night-Hag, coo cooing, stroking your hair, lulling you. 

"We're WIDE-AWAKE!"

It doesn't creep up on me. 

Susan is a bad sleeper too, so the pair of us lie in frozen attitudes - like Etruscan statuary - desperate not to move and wake the other up. It's not conducive to restful slumber, but then restful slumber was never on the cards. My Facebook memories tells me that two years ago I was suffering from insomnia on this very date. This appears to be how I see in the new year. It's a tradition, like first footing, or failing to live up to an overly ambitious resolution. I see in each new year exhausted, crabby and addle-headed. 

But sober. Two weeks sober. I wonder if that can have anything to do with it? Hmm.