Nocturne

I'm having a hard time sleeping again.

Well, that's not entirely true. I sleep like a baby every afternoon when I'm supposed to be working. I usually drift off about 2 pm and wake in the dark, totally disoriented. I do this because I'm exhausted.

Every night, when most people are winding down, my restless mind starts revving up. I end up awake until 3 or 4 am, reading, writing, or watching tv. Those groggy afternoon naps aren't the source of my insomnia, either - even on those miserable days when I miss my nap, I'm awake until dark-thirty.

I've always been a night owl, but my late-night hours turned into insomnia a few months before my marriage to Dear Husband. Even though our wedding was a pretty low-key affair, the planning of it started to weigh on my mind and I couldn't sleep at night. This was a problem when I was expected to show up at an office at 9 am.

It's less of an issue now that I work at home, but I'd still like to sleep at night. A few weeks ago, the problem seemed to be resolving itself - I was drifting off around midnight and waking up around 7 am, fresh as a flower.

But my insomnia has returned, and I'm padding around my apartment in the middle of the night, making the dogs anxious and, I hope, disturbing my obnoxious neighbors. In a way it's kind of nice - I can work or read without the interruptions that punctuate the days. But it's also isolating, and my life is already pretty solitary. I'm going to try to get some sleep.