Zzzzzzzzz's Please

This blog post came to me fully formed in my head at 11:59pm last night.  After 89 minutes of sleep I was awake.  And concluded I had likely just had the best 89 minutes of sleep I was likely to have for the rest of the night.

How maddening!

Here's the thing with me and sleep:

1. I come from a long line of insomniacs......on my maternal side.....figures I got the gene. 

2. My Dad on the other hand (and his father before him) could nap for 30 minutes on a train station platform in Mumbai and awake refreshed.  Grandpa R called it "40 winks".   My sister is the same, although if I had 7 kids I would likely be able to nap on the loo for a few minutes just to keep going (not that she does that.....that I know of).  This napping gene missed me.  I would love to nap but it takes me an hour to fall asleep.....and when I wake up.....well lets just say....not good!

3. My best sleep of the night is right after I go to sleep IF I get to fall asleep with no interruptions - if this process is interrupted I am toast and hours of ceiling staring ensue.

4. I need darkness and I wear ear plugs.

5.Late nights are bearable occasionally and by late I mean midnight but all-nighters are just.not.worth.it anymore (if they ever were).  Even if I don't physically turn into a pumpkin when the clock strikes midnight my witty, engaging personality turns to dust.

6. My second best sleep is right before the alarm goes off.  I am often awake in the 5am hour but usually dead asleep when the alarm goes off at 6am.

7. I can hit the "sleep" button on the alarm with deadly accuracy, again and again.....because of course now I feel like I could sleep for hours. Doubtful but worth testing one day soon :)

8. My husband goes to sleep in less than 10 seconds.  There are times I imagine smothering him with a pillow such is my frustration at listening to his contented whiffling sleep as I lay wide awake.  This is a guy who slept through a deafening thunderflash going off outside his window when he was in the army - lucky they didn't need him to defend the country. And good luck to me if I hear "a noise" and try and wake him for assistance....

9.  When I do wake up in the night......often I stumble to the bathroom, trying not to open my eyes much, trying to tell my body it's not really out of bed or awake. This is why my legs look as though I have been beaten by a baseball bat......one tends to hit things in the dark with your eyes closed.

10. If my body/brain figure out I am up and awake my brain decides to start cataloging things.  And writing blogs, letters to the Editor, whole novels.  And the calendar part of my brain starts going through the week and all the things that need to be done.  And then the panic part of me awakes too so I can worry about getting it all done.

11. I have no strategies for any of this........I don't like to get up....it's cold and I am frankly scared of being downstairs on my own in the dark...I don't read because I would still be reading at 6am when the alarm went off.....I don't plug into an iPod or the radio because that would wind me up too much (well I could try quiet music but if it was sports or, God forbid, politics I would be done for!)

12. Now that my children are self sufficient in the mornings and I could sleep in ...... I can't..... or very rarely and then not past 9am..... cruel irony.

So I suck at sleeping well............

Do YOU have any trouble sleeping?