Sleep The Final Frontier

 

                                 "There are some nights when 

                                  sleep plays coy,

                                  aloof and disdainful.   

                                  And all the wiles

                                  that i employ to win

                                  it's service to my side

                                  are useless as wounded pride,

                                  and much more painful."

                                      Maya Angelou  

"Goodnight" definition:  "a pleasant expression said at the end of the day"

Yeah right......so says the dictionary......i have a different definition......

"goodnight" jeni's definition: "oxymoron, contradiction in terms, interminable"

I am often accused of being an incorrigible optimist.   it's said with affection, mostly.    annoyance, often.      admiration, rarely.    but there's one aspect of life that can beat me down into oblivion........SLEEP......or the lack of it !!

I said in my last post that i've always been a sleepwalker when stressed.   during the moving house process i would wake to find all sorts of rubbish tidily packed, the contents of the recycle box folded neatly and laid between tissue paper, as pretty as a bride's trousseau.  And essentials untidily unpacked and strewn around different rooms, the cheese grater in the microwave, a lamp I N the loo, what depths of the psyche dredged that up?    

After we were burgled in the middle of the night a few times as we slept, i spent weeks  barricading the doors from the inside in the early hours, whilst asleep, to protect us from  Attila The Hun, with his sidekick Noggin The Nogg, coming to rape and pillage.   i suppose the sleeping brain doesn't differentiate between a couple of spotty oik kids and Thor of Asgard.    it took the installing of that wonder of modern technology to bring me back to the world of rationality, to whit......a burglar alarm  !!!!   simples !!!   old Attila didn't know how to contend with one of those now did he?

My wakefulness has a different cause now.   Disability has a habit of bringing some of his mates, pain, discomfort and insomnia, to the party, and they have a bad habit of boogieing  on down all night long with loud music,  pokes in the back and pains in the butt,  but i wish it wasn't  MY  butt being pained.

A typical night goes something like this:

10 - 11.00    climb into bed with cat and book

11 - 12.00    pet cat, read book

12 - 1.00        settle down to sleep,  fail, read book

1 -   2.00       sleep, wake,  read more book

2  -  3.00       wake cat, feed cat,  make cocoa, read yet more book

3 -   4.00       sleep,  wake, read forgotten previous pages of book

4 -   5.00        sleep, wake, swear (in Russian) at length

5 -   8.00       sleep

8 -    wake and leap out of bed full of joy and vigour, keen and ready  start the  day.......NOT !

Now, this isn't a complaint at the unfairness of the universe, picking on poor,  little old me.......the me who survived Attila.......the me who only swears in Russian so the cat isn't offended.......the me who quotes a worthy like Maya Angelou........the me who increases her knowledge by reading crappy sci-fi in the early hours........the me who is the universe's most optimistic optimist.......the me whose butt is the butt of too many butt jokes........the me ...............!!???!!!..........ok.......it is a complaint, butt (sorry couldn't resist)  every sentient being is allowed to whinge once in a while surely?