Awake- Friday April 1st

The nighttime hours are long when you’re trying to fall asleep naturally. All the apartment building noises that were dulled by the soothing stupor of the sleeping pill become obnoxious. The whir of a vent that used to be white noise becomes a haunting siren.

The bed is hot. I remember when I was young these hours were the shortest, the most chased after. It was the daylight that stretched interminably, bound by panty hose and stuffed into skirt suits. Now it’s only midnight, and tonight’s battle for sleep is only two hours old but it feels like weeks. I’m exhausted but my eyes feel like they’re spring-loaded. I know that staring at the bright computer screen is a major threat to the sleep I want so badly. I know too that hours of uninterrupted thinking leads to brooding leads to obsessing, and that when the obsessing starts the hope for any real sleep slips away.

I took the sleeping pills for granted. Instead in reveling in my new ability to snuggle right into bed and fall asleep without a flitter of anxiety about my job performance or future, I immediately forgot that I was ever a bad sleeper. I forgot how after fighting for hours for some precious night-time sleep, I would bolt awake at the smallest noises: my dog’s fitful dreams, that settling noise the toilet makes, the snap of the wind against my 8th floor window. I miss those nights of eight thick hours of sleep like a person in jail must miss sex, or a bath tub.

In the apartment building across from ours, one set of windows is lit up like it’s being shown by a realtor. I keep looking over to see if someone else is awake, or if someone has come home yet. I try and practice typing without looking at the keyboard because my hands are starting to look veiny and old, which is kind of a stupid thing to annoy me. But I’m pretty good at typing without looking. I do another math problem- If I fall asleep by one and go to the gym after work, I can wake up at 7:30 which still gives me six and a half hours. I know it won’t be the good six and a half though. When the dog jumps in bed at four A.M. I’ll wake up, and I’ll probably spend the wee hours of the morning contemplating the sharp angles of my bedroom, or whether or not there’s a dividing egg in my body.