Buenos días

I often write complaining about insomia, so it is not ironic that this morning I ponder its causes... I love sleeping, always have, always will. As an adolescent, between the incessant fútbol training, and my long walks to the nearby college town, my greatest pleasure was my bed. I did just about everything there: mostly reading and studying, but also, writing, exercising and cuddling with friends. If my bedroom was my castle, then my bed was my throne, and the twilight hours would spin on endlessly, clutching the telephone, wrapping its cord around my finger (back when cell phones and beepers were a distant rumor, big boxy things reserved only for drug dealers of high powered executives), whispering words, words, words... to a select list of listeners late into the night. I would drift off sometime after midnight, and at 6 jump in the shower, and crawl back into bed until 7, when I would race the half mile up the street to my high school, wet hair freezing in twisted stalactites in the winter, or rivers of sweat winding their way down my neck in the spring humidity. Now, as an aside, having spent several years teaching adolescents, I feel that I can honestly assess the absolutely anti-pedagocial qualities of such a schedule. Teenagers do not function until at least 9am, and teaching at 7 was not much fun as an adult not so far removed from her teenage years either.

But somehow, that lack of sleep never felt like insomnia. It felt more like a collective trial, a rite of passage that was clearly a developmental deficiency, as opposed to a personal one. Now, I am not so sure. My allergies are not too bad these days, so I doubt seriously the physical cause of sleep apnea. No, I think it is a psychophysiological problem, that has to do with improper sleep preparation habits. Now of course the fact that a loud alarm goes off at 12:30 every night for M. to leave for work, or today that he forgot his phone and the alarm went off at 5:45, causing me to look up his work number on the internet, and persist calling for half an hour until he finally answered, just to make sure he was awake before the clients were, can't be what would be considered "good sleep hygiene"... but I think that it goes beyond that.

I can't turn my brain off. This has long been a problem. There is this interior monologue that machinates plans and creates lists of things to do, berates me for not accomplishing everything that I should have, and fabricates scenarios that I weigh against one another, in a helical sort of analysis. Gahhh.

I should be under significantly less duress, but I am plagued with all the vacation preparations. I love travel, but I always begin to tense just before I get on a plane, what might happen, will there be delays, will I have enough time to make connecting flights, will I be able to keep all the luggage together, will I be selected as a random passenger, will I be able to manage all this alone with the child? Just a few of the questions that I am certainly asking myself, if unconsciously... Which is so obnoxious, because I don't even care... Maybe it is something else causing my stress? Maybe I just hate sleeping alone?