Insomnia

So, what do you do when you can't sleep?

Tonight, I am faced with that predicament......I played hockey earlier in the evening and I am still wired!

Truth be told, the game ended almost 9 hours ago. It is somewhere around 5am and I still can't get to sleep!

It used to be that I would get up and read. As I have gotten older, however, I have found that I get up and watch TV....I am pretty sure that this is not a healthy thing to be doing! I guess when I was single, there wasn't anyone to wake up when I turned on the light and opened a book. Now, of course, I have to worry about waking up my wife.

The "routine" usual is bathroom then a glass of water. At that point I grab a blanket, the newspaper from the day before and head to the couch. Sometimes I turn on the TV, sometimes I don't. Then it is a matter of playing the waiting game until sleepiness arrives.

Why I think that this is going to work I don't know. It usually is counter productive. I am often thinking about trying to shut my mind off, about going to a "sleepy" place. Unfortunately this seems to make me all the more conscious of the fact that I can't sleep. And the battle begins as my mind becomes aware of the trickery going on. I will literally think "Ah! You are tricking yourself into going to sleep! Fool, it will never work...mwahahahaha!" And so the circle goes.

Really, since I was thirteen until I was about 26, I would never sleep the night through. I don't know if meeting Aldea soothed my soul, because since meeting her I have slept better. I usually have one night every two weeks, though, where the insomnia bug kicks in.

My wife, on the other hand, is one of those people whom I envy, because she seems to be able to sleep anywhere, at any time. My first Argentine family was exceptional at it. My host Mom, Olga, would fall asleep the minute that she got on a bus. Her son, my host brother Manuel, was even better. We shared a room, and both of us would read right before bed. He would last about five minutes and would then be out like a light! On more than one occasion he has slept through his bus stop when going back to Santa Rosa from Buenos Aires, having to call his parents to come pick him up a town or two down the road!

And then there is me, waiting for the sandman to come take me away....Oh joyous sleep where art though!