I Need to Sleep

I am basically a chronic insomniac. I always have trouble sleeping, and I never feel like I get enough sleep. But things have reached a critical point lately. Ideally, I would like to get 8 hours of sleep a night, but I will happily settle for 7. I never sleep through the night. I wake up least two times a night, I get up to pee, and I stumble back to bed and usually fall right back to sleep, unless one of the many anxiety-provoking thoughts I’ve been having lately pops into my head, in which case, sleep is hopeless. My sleep pattern for the past two weeks has been that I lie awake for a long time once I get into bed (by no later than 11). Then I finally fall asleep, wake up around 3 or 4, fall back to sleep pretty quickly, wake up again around 5, and lie awake until the alarm goes off at 6:45. I’ve made efforts to combat my insomnia over the years. I gave up caffeine two years ago. I’ve tried not drinking (heavy drinking makes a difference in my sleep patterns; moderate drinking makes no difference—I don’t sleep any better sans alcohol, so I can’t see depriving myself of that daily glass or wine or two). I sleep with a face mask and ear plugs to blot out all noise and sound. I work out almost every day in an effort to tire myself out. But the main problem seems to be that I can’t turn off my brain, and that’s what keeps me up at night. Damn overactive brain. And it’s not like I’m solving the problems of the world while I’m lying awake at night. I wish I could be one of those people who can just admit that she is not going to get anymore sleep and gets out of bed and does something productive, like doing my taxes or rearranging my closets. But I am not. I just lie there, ever hopeful that sleep will come.

Two weeks of less than optimal sleep has left me looking a little haggard. I always have dark circles under my eyes (just a hereditary thing and having pale skin makes them more prominent), but they are really dark now and all the concealer in the world can’t hide them. And those tiny lines that normally aren’t so noticeable seem to be more prominent. Unfortunately, I had to get my aforementioned passport photo taken during this sleepless bout. And this is by far the worst photo I have ever taken. I usually look a little younger than my age, but this photo adds at least 10 years. The lighting completely washes me out, that annoying vertical crease on my forehead (don’t people normally have horizontal lines on their foreheads?) is suddenly huge and prominent, my skin looks sallow and greasy, and although I didn’t realize I was doing it when the picture was being snapped, I was doing my Scarlett O’Hara/Vivien Leigh raised eyebrow thing, so I look like I am sneering. (Maybe my mother was right—if I keep making funny faces, my face WILL freeze like that.) The photo didn’t look that bad on the camera display, but it came out truly horrific. I almost asked the guy to take it over, but I just didn’t have the energy. Because, you know, I’m tired.