Today

Today I was reminded that I am generally alone in this thing called "chronic insomnia".  That despite being surrounded by amazing loved ones who would lay their lives down for me, well-meaning acquaintances who think they "get it", or doctors who look at it with a scientific eye, no one will ever understand what it's like to be me.


I spent many hours crying today.

Chronic insomnia is a horribly lonely disorder.  I have always said this.  As a child, it was lonely in a scary way. There is nothing more terrifying to a child with a sleep disorder than bed time- the time when everyone in your giant house is going to nod off and you will be alone, in the silent and dark, for the next 12 hours without the ability to distract yourself because you're a child. As an adult, it's a more sad, deep, loneliness that doesn't only come at night.  The nighttime loneliness still happens- I assure you. The realization as my husband falls asleep that there is only so much art, only so many podcasts, only so much reading I can do.  That there will be hours I lay in bed, in the dark, pretending I may fall asleep but never acheieving it.  That I will feel like the only person awake in a world that is resting.

But there is another, more insidious loneliness.  The one where your family asks "why don't you go to bed earlier?" and your friends ask how you could be tired at 8 pm "if you never really sleep". When your wonderful husband wants to take you flying or hiking or house-searching at 9 am and you don't want to say no, so you try to bargain with the gods for just one, real, night of sleep and when it doesn't come, you are so angry and sad and anxious when you look at the clock and it's 8 am that you want to just run away. Just crawl into a hole and hibernate. I feel I could hibernate for 6 months and never make up for 30 years od insomnia. When you wake up at 2 after falling asleep at 10am and everyone is gone, living their lives, and you are ashamed, alone, and tired. So tired. And so convinced that everyone just thinks you're lazy.  When people think it's funny to joke "You never sleep!" or "You won't be awake for breakfast!" and all it does is break your heart a little bit each time. When you are left out of social events because everyone knows you won't sleep, won't be awake... “When you have insomnia, you’re never really asleep, and you’re never really awake.”

Everyone wants to fit in.Chronic insomnia not only isolates me by creating a state of being that no one really understands, it further hurts me by creating a stigma about me that I'm lazy, I'm depressed, I'm crazy.  Maybe I am crazy. Who wouldn't be after not sleeping for this long?

I don't know what my hope is for this blog.  Part of me wants it to be a place people can direct others when they want their families to "understand" insomnia.  Part of me just wants a place to write when I'm awake and lonely. We'll see where it takes me.

Change of pace.

This blog was, years ago, just something to try.

It has now changed.  I am a chronic insomnia sufferer and have been my entire life.  I will be using this as my late night journal.  For now it's for my own therapeutic reasons. If you stumble upon it, great. I'll probably at some point make my loved ones aware of it but for now I just need a place to get it out. A place I can be accountable to get it out, too. Get it off my chest. Not obsess when I should be horizontal.


So here it is: So Not Horizontal- an insomnia blog.

I promise to try harder

So many things are happening in my life that I abandoned my blog after only a few posts. So I shall try again....

What have I been doing whilst I was gone, you ask?

Filling out drunken surveys on Myspace, of course.
Sarah mentioned this debacle on her blog, so I decided that as my way of explaining where I've been, I'd put it here:

But alas, myspace only saves them for 10 days. Sorry kids. I promise to blog here instead of myspace, next time I'm drunk.

Other than that, been without a car, filling out applications, going to interviews, Josh has been going to interviews as well.

KU won the NCAA!! WOO HOO! We're very proud.

Sunday was my father's birthday...
he drove a race car. At a 145 mph.
Poor Josh was sick the entire time
and it was 100 degrees out, so
that part wasn't awesome.
If only we are all this healthy
and child-like in our 60s,
everything will be fine!




As far as life goals go, right now neither of us are able to fulfill any. Josh was laid off and I am unable to go to my temporary job because the car blew a gasket. So we're both on the job search train and it's going no where fast. I have decided,
I think, that my talents lie in elderly care... not
the actual care but the business/human resources
side of it, so I have been trying to get concierge/
assistant type jobs at assisted living communities.




Murph-dog is great. Just as crazy as ever. His new thing is hunting the lizards in the backyard which he stares at, and when they don't move he growls.... then barks.... the finally pounces like a cat. He's never caught one. Poor kid.

sorry!

I haven't written lately because I am completely blank. The reason I am blank is because all I can think about right now is that I'M ENGAGED!

Yep, Josh proposed on Thursday. It was amazing and perfect and I was (and am) completely shocked!

So now begins the planning. Which should be fun and overwhelming but worth it. We only get to do it once, right? (we hope) so it better be good!

Ahhh the hilarity

Read this in a survey filled out by someone tonight:

Q. Do you smoke? A. Not really, Only when I drink

Q. Do you drink? A. Every day

Friday Fill-ins!

Thanks Sarah!


1. Once, I was very very trusting of people. Now I've learned my lesson!
2. Today at work I filed a bunch of mail into a bunch of files. Fun.
3. What is Lost all about? I can't possibly suspend my reality long enough to get into it.
5. If I make a mistake I worry about it for days and days and days. I've been repeating a conversation I had with a stranger in my head for days now. I think I said something rude, but I didn't mean to.
6. When I woke up this morning, I thought "wow, my head hurts much worse than it should in a normal day"
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to seeing Josh, walking Murphy, and cleaning. and Sunday, I want to do something fun. Maybe go to March AFB or something. Get out. Get around. Get crazy. (It probably won't happen)

Firing Squad

My friend and I were having a rather random conversation last night when it got into, first, how much money would it take to make you do something gross (I won't go into that!) and second, would you rather do this or that?

The question she asked was: if you were being executed by firing squad, would you rather be killed by bow and arrow or rifle.

Everyone else I've asked has said rifle... it's quicker and more accurate.

However, I think they fail to see this scenario. You walk into the firing squad with a spare arrow stuffed down your pants. When no one is looking, you stick it in your armpit, moan in pain, and fall over "dead". This seriously will work. I have never tried it but I promise, it'll go over like margarine on toast.

That being said, I have to admit that my first theory in everything is to play dead. Every time I see someone being attacked on TV or movies, I always think to myself "well, that unfortunate situation could have been avoided had she/he/it pretended to be dead after the first punch/shot/vampire attack". Even in real life, I often wonder why people don't play dead more often. I guess I'm a dyer, not a fighter.


As an extra note: This advice doesn't work if, for example, you're being attacked by a vulture. Or anything else that consumes the already dead. Then you're just asking for it.