insomnia

i've got insomnia.

again.

ugh.

i have these episodic bouts with insomnia that verge on periodic. not quite enough to be predictable, but just enough to keep me from ever getting comfortable.

i've had them as long as i could remember. as i kid, i just thought it was natural that sometimes you could not go to sleep, and that you would just lay in bed staring into the darkness. they started to get worse in high school, when instead of just 1 occasional night of sleep deprivation i started to go for 2 or 3 days at a stretch. once i got into my 20s, they started to go even longer, to the point that now they sometimes stretch for weeks.

it's not that i'm going completely without sleep. i'm getting some, but just not enough. maybe 2-3 hours a night. basically, just enough to give me a tantalizing taste of rest and relief while leaving me in a state of near exhaustion. i can describe it as akin to giving a thirsty man lost in the desert a few drops of water, and then leaving him to parch in the heat.

which wouldn't be a big deal, except that it brings with it all sorts of attendant problems: irritability, melancholy, loss of appetite, lack of motivation, difficulty paying attention or concentrating, and a near-constant state of lethargy that can verge on paralysis. sometimes i'll find myself just lying in bed, doing nothing other than staring out the window.

i think i know the reason why i have this problem.

in fact, i'm sure i know the reason why.

i think that all the problems and issues that i've experienced and accumulated in the course of human living are rising to give me payback. and as much as i have bypassed, suppressed, ignored, compartmentalized, analyzed, reified, and outright defied them, they have not really gone away. yeah sure, they've left my conscious, but they've left and gone to my subconscious. and once there, they've only grown. to the point that they've become restless.

and now they won't leave me alone.

training (sort of) helps, to the extent that my workouts over so many hours and so many miles of water and earth and sky give my subconscious its release, so that it is free to roam wherever it may want to go--usually, thankfully, at those times, it is away from me.

but training only goes so far. and when the workouts are over, and i've cooled down and cleaned up, i'm invariably left right back where i originally started: lying in bed, alone with my thoughts, somehow somewhere sometime long past midnight, staring once again into the darkness.

it's a personal hell. every night. pain and suffering and memories and pain and suffering and memories and pain and suffering and memories and more and more and more and more and more and more

heartache.

oh, yes, that.

*sigh*

i keep closing my eyes, waiting for sleep to come and send it all away.

but the thoughts they come and stay.

every night and every day.

i'm so tired.

i can only hope the thoughts get tired.

they usually do. i just have to outlast them. i've gotten better at that as i've gotten older. but it never gets easier. and some times are harder--much harder--than others. like now.

but that's okay.

it just means i have to endure.

i just have to live.

john mayer, dreaming with a broken heart
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LipClb6N8Dk