Saturday, January 12, 2013

Insomnia Bounce

1:56. AM.  What is it that keeps me from ever, ever, sleeping like a normal person?  I can remember as a child, oh maybe 2nd or 3rd grade reading Heidi for the first time, coming to the part about how she was so tired that she was "asleep before her head hit her pillow" and recognizing it for the unmitigated bullshit that it so obviously was.  (It's also the first time I'd ever been introduced to the cliche of 'asleep before your head hits your pillow' and I think it scarred me for life.)  But I digress. 

Usually my problem is that my body wants to sleep, feels all nice and relaxed, but my mind is going, going, going; for a long time I fell into the trap of getting angry which of course unrelaxes the body and gets you riled up in general. I've learnt not to do that, I just get up and find something to do, like read, or watch, or blog. 

And I've had this problem my entire life.  I can remember one night, desperate to sleep, where I whammed my head against the headboard of my bed hard enough to daze myself.  I'd been hoping to knock myself out entirely, not understanding yet exactly what mechanism made that happen or what kind of damage I could do myself.  I discovered that I really don't like hitting my head against a solid surface, so I suppose I accomplished something.

I've actually had several times in my life where I landed on my head in one way or another but didn't knock myself out.  Head first off a trailered boat onto a concrete driveway is the infamous one in my family.  About twelve feet or so up, I was around 2 or 3.  I don't remember it, but apparently survived with nothing worse than skinned up knees and elbows.  Because toddlers bounce, doncha know.

And in the first grade, so 6 years old, I went over straight backwards while on roller skates at the local Skateworld.  Bounced the back of my head off the training rink.

Okay, so not several times, two times, but still, either of those could have done me in.

Or maybe they're responsible for the way I am now.

2 comments:

  1. The easiest way to get a good nights of sleep is to realize one simple thing... Sleep is when all your worrying and thinking and all those thoughts going around actually get resolved. So...why not put the confidence in your subconscious it deserves and go to sleep, knowing your subconscious will handle it?

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    1. Lately I've been wondering if all the thoughts going around in my head weren't me trying to protect myself from something I think I enjoy too much. Once I get to sleep, it just makes so much more sense to stay that way forever.

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