Why I Couldn’t Sleep Last Night

I tossed and turned, my sheets wrapping around me and my melancholy.

I’ve said it before, Mommy needs a good night’s sleep. And last night it just wasn’t happening.

Here are some reasons:

  • I had worries about getting up early to buy and deliver breakfast to 22 kids at the church lock-in at 7 this morning.
  • I do too much.
  • Chris, my husband, is returning home tomorrow after a couple of weeks of being away. It’s an adjustment.
  • I am worried about the expense and commitment of getting Chris help with daily tasks of living for his Parkinson’s Disease.
  • It’s 9/11 weekend. It’s depressing.
  • I’m not exercising much, because of my foot pain.
  • I’ve focused too much on the kids and establishing their back-to-school routine.
  • My bedroom is too hot; the air conditioner is too loud.
  • I went to a MeetUp last night for writers who perform; had a couple of beers. Felt a little jazzed.
  • I did not write much.
  • I have anxiety about work and the possible downsizing of our agency.

I guess that’s enough. I finished Donald Miller’s Blue Like Jazz yesterday. I so identified with his discovery that we are open to forgive and love other people way more than we accept ourselves. The point of everything, every encounter — even our encounters with ourselves in the middle of the night — is love.

That is, instead of withholding love to change somebody, I poured it on lavishly. I hoped that love would work like a magnet, pulling people from the mire and toward healing.

This is tough. I have to find a way to love and forgive everybody, including myself; I need more help. Some problems can be resolved with more help and more love, and some with healthier behaviors. Here’s how I answer myself on last night’s worries:

  • I had to take one of the girls to the pediatrician's office for her ear infection. This was in the waiting room. My thoughts, like cogs, go round and round.

    You delivered the breakfast.

  • You like being busy. Being busy and happy pays off.
  • You’ll adjust to Chris’s return. You have your own travel plans.
  • Just spend the money to get Chris help.
  • This weekend will pass.
  • Exercise any way. Swim. Bike. Run. Do yoga. Do physical therapy for foot.
  • The kids are doing great.
  • Leave the air conditioner on.
  • Decompress with a book or herbal tea, not a beer.
  • Write more.
  • Let go of the work worries; there’s nothing to be done about them any way.

Writing all this has helped. I need more coffee. Maybe later, I can sneak in a nap. (Or exercise.)

Mommy Needs Sleep

“Mom needs a good night’s sleep,” Chris told the kids.

After the dinner of tabouli was cleared away, we had a family meeting on the subject of Mom and sleep.

The night before last was horrible. H. came into bed with me because he was hot and I have the only bedroom, thanks to the generosity of our building’s handyman, with an air conditioner. Then C. came into bed an hour or two later because she couldn’t sleep. All the lights were still on. It was 3 in the morning. Chris was watching a movie. It was disquieting. When I left my bed for hers, crowded out by C. and H., C. followed me back into her twin bed, calling, “Mom? Where are you?”

“I’m in your bed!”

Musical beds.

Because of Chris’s very irregular sleep habits — he’s up all night playing bridge on the computer or watching movies he borrows from the library and he snores loudly — we hardly sleep together any more. We’ve set up a twin bed for him in the dining room.

As Chris said at the family meeting: “Do not wake Mom. She needs sleep.”

To that I said, “Thank you. As a mother I need patience. And as a writer I need mental acuity. Both of these are possible with a good night’s sleep.”

Last night I went to bed at 10. Then I read the paper in bed for 20 minutes. It was heaven. No one bothered me all night.

This morning I have woken full of patience and mental acuity. Who knows what is possible after a good night’s sleep?