I remember being a child, lying in bed and having parts of my day fester in my brain like an easter egg that no one found. Maybe it was some giant zit-faced monster that may or may not have been invading my city. Or perhaps it was just my fear of ending up in prison some day for a crime I didn�t commit. I suppose it really doesn�t matter what the �it� was, the result was the same. Sleep was not my friend. Eventually, my physical need for sleep would overpower my brain�s ability to stay awake and I would, in fact, sleep.
It�s much the same now, though there are no zit-faced monsters invading my city. My brain is sort of like sleeping with one of the three stooges� I�m trying to curl up and go to sleep, and they keep poking me in the back. Hey, that�s funny, they say. No, not so much, I say. Please go away. They usually don�t.
I�ve found that they usually go away when confronted with some Ambien. Most days anyway. Tonight, not so much. Since I have admitted a vicodin addiction, I am trying to be really careful with the ambien. There�s an actual need for this pill. Lack of sleep can either dump me into a depression (a trip I may already be on at this point) or shoot me into a manic. Neither one of these trips are really any fun. I�d like to avoid them if at all possible. They tend to fuck up my life. Whether I find myself in a high or low, I literally have no ability to think of tomorrow. Today is the only time that matters. RIGHT NOW is the only now that matters. And if my actions have consequences, fuck it, it doesn�t matter � that�s another day, we haven�t gotten there yet.
So I start my evenings by retiring to bed when I feel generally sleepy enough to sleep. When my eyes start burning from being awake. When my body starts to feel like just sitting up would take too much energy. When I feel this way, I head to bed, turn out the lights, get comfortable and close my eyes. My brain immediately picks up on some portion of the day � could be anything, some mistake I made at work, a conversation with a friend, a feeling of being a failure, a flower I saw earlier and didn�t pick and now wish that I had, the dinner I wished I�d eaten, how I need to do laundry tomorrow, how I need to do laundry tomorrow, how I need to do laundry tomorrow (this is an intentional duplication of thought to mimic how it is in my brain, it does frequently repeat itself over and over until I manage to distract it).
If a half an hour passes without the sense that I am settling down, I take � an ambien. I then return to my bed-mate, Larry, Curly or Moe or whichever one has brought their physical comedy to my sheets that night, and hope that the pill will make me immune to their pokes and jabs. Ambien is supposed to work in about 10 minutes, so when a half an hour passes, I consider that it�s not working. I try a few minutes of relaxation techniques that I learned once upon a time when I was a more highly evolved being.
If that doesn�t work, then I take another � pill. Wait another half an hour. Attempt to fall asleep on my own. Then another � pill. I�ve never gotten past 3 sessions with the ambien before sleep finally took it�s rightful place in my evening. But I hate relying on a pill to sleep. I know there are other methods. I try them all. I read articles on sleep. I try relaxing music, relaxation therapy stuff. But my brain is so much more powerful and willful. It�s like a spoiled child running through the grocery store saying �I WANT GUM� and if I don�t give it gum, it will never shut the hell up. My brain should be my friend, not my enemy.
So tonight, feeling particularly tired, I tried to sleep early. No go. Took my first � pill at 9. No go. Took 2nd half at 9:30. No go. I�m still awake. I feel tired. But I can�t sleep. Is this like placing food in front of a starving person and saying, no, that�s not for you? It kind of feels that way. I�m waiting until 10:30 and if I�m still awake, I�m taking another � pill. I can�t let the brain win and I have so little ammunition.
Emotionally, I feel pretty wrecked lately. I can�t really put it in words. There�s big parts of me that think staying in bed in my pajamas for the rest of my life would be a fantastic thing. There�s another part of me that is afraid I�ll turn into Pajama Girl. I can�t specifically put it into words, what is wrong, it�s just there, this blackness that hovers around me. You know when you have a particularly bad fart, you think you can walk to a different room and leave the smell behind? It�s kind of like that, it follows me, I can�t shake it. Sometimes, I can convince myself that the world is not a scary place and that is enough to shake it free. But these days, the world is a scary place.
I need a good cry. A good, my stomach muscles hurt because I�ve been crying so hard kind of cry. But when the feeling of that kind of cry surfaces, it is always at the worst possible moment. I have gotten so good at shoving it all down. But it�s there. It�s name is Larry, Moe or Curly and it�s poking at me right now.
When I was 8, I was afraid I�d end up in prison. I was right.
