QUEEN OF SLEEP

I used to be the "Queen of Sleep".  I could fall asleep any where at any time. But something has changed and the queen has been dethroned.  Now I spend my nights tossing and turning and waking up every hour or so.  What the heck has happened ????  I am way past "The Change of Life" which is a totally stupid name for the disastrous down hill slide into old age. Change of Life suggests to me an improvement of life when in reality it is the beginning of the end. Or at least a beginning of wishing it would all end.  I don't think I know a single woman who can say her life improved after menopause even though we are free of cramps and tampons. Instead we have facial hair, hot flashes, mood swings that would make Mother Theresa swear and an increase of body fat that only adds to our foul mood.

But back to the problem of sleep. When I was a teen my mom would complain of not being able to sleep at night, (which probably was a result of the fact that she was living with me). That and taking care of my grand father who was disabled due to a stroke and living with us probably were huge factors in her sleepless nights.  I would tell her to just close her eyes and roll over and she would fall back to sleep . . . Nothing to it !!  How naive could I be ? Perhaps it is because of that cavalier attitude that God has seen fit to teach me a lesson and leave me to ponder why I can't sleep any more.

It all started last year when I had knee replacement surgery. Up until that point I would lie down in bed at night and be sound asleep two minutes later. Not only could I fall asleep instantly but I could sleep ten to twelve hours a night without any pee breaks or other interruptions to my slumber. After the surgery I was on pain meds for a few days which helped me sleep but it was an interrupted sleep because of the need to shift position during the night. From there it was down hill and I never got back to my old sleep habits. Add to that all the traveling I do and sleeping in different places in different time zones my body doesn't know when to shut down and when to rev up.  I can fall asleep at 2:00 in the afternoon with no problem at all but at 2:00 in the morning I am wandering the house wondering what I can do with myself.  It is ridiculous !

 I am never at a loss for finding something to keep myself busy during the day. (As you can see I always can find something to blog about if there is nothing else to do.) On the days that I am out and about I do have less trouble falling asleep but it is the staying asleep that is the problem.  I wake up an hour after falling asleep and then my brain kicks in and starts thinking about all the things I did not do during the day and all the things that I want to do the next day. The lists are endless ! I have to talk myself down from getting up at midnight to vacuum the house or clean the shed. So I lie there trying to convince myself that I AM tired and I NEED to sleep. That only results in starting an argument with myself about how dumb it is that I can't sleep. From there I get thinking about topics to blog about and I start composing my next entry in my mind. That results in the desire to get up and write immediately before I forget what I was thinking about. Because even though I am awake then I know I will not remember a single thing that is passing through my brain at that moment. To be honest it is probably a very good thing that I won't remember any of the nonsense I think about at 2 AM.  To show just how stupid this is last night I woke up because I was thinking that when I got up in the morning I would research ways to get a better nights sleep. That is what WOKE me . . .

I really don't know what is going on but what ever it is I don't like it. Sleep was always a joy to me and to be honest it was an escape. Maybe that is what has changed, I am now perfectly content with my life so I have no reason to "escape" .

That's something to think about tonight at two in the morning.