Nonsleep Strikes Again

Nonsleep struck again last night, and if I had more energy I'd be furious.

I went to bed at 8:30 last night because I was so exhausted from the previous night. When I went to bed I thought, "If I sleep until my alarm goes off, I hope I don't get too much sleep."

Hah. In a repeat of the previous night, I woke up after five great hours of sleep. I went to the bathroom, came back to bed, and tumbled around the bed for the next two hours. I did everything to get back to sleep. I tried different positions on both sides of the bed. I opened the window, closed the window, turned on the fan, turned off the fan. I concentrated on my breathing and tried to block all thoughts from my mind. I counted backwards from 100 in German. (I stopped in the 30s, because I was afraid of getting to zero and still being awake.)

During my nonsleep I thought about sports, sex, my job, my ex-wife, what I would blog about tomorrow, sex, why I couldn't get to sleep, my tennis match tomorrow, sex, my plans to deal with my lack of sleep the next day, and sex. Usually sex is the thing I can think about that relaxes me and puts me to sleep. But it didn't work this time. On the plus side, I thought of a lot of really great things to blog about and I hoped that I would remember them in the morning.

A few times I tried to rage away the nonsleep. I got angry at it. I imagined it was an object that I could take into a garage and smash with a baseball bat. This is the exact opposite strategy you want to take with nonsleep. Brute force or sheer will does not work on it. It's a zen thing-- you have to let it come to you, like a stray cat hiding under your porch. The more you try to catch it, the more elusive it becomes.

It did come to me, eventually, and I was able to get maybe another hour of sleep in. During that time I dreamed about SnarkEx cheating on me (in the dream we were still together.) That's the third night in a row that I've dreamed about that. Maybe that's one explanation for the nonsleep.

I think a major cause of my nonsleep is a really important tennis match I have tonight. I'm obsessing about it and really want to beat a guy I've never beaten before. I'm undefeated so far and I know I can beat him, but I have to be at my best. And that means being well-rested. If this were any other Tuesday, I would take some time off this afternoon to go home and rest up. But I have three classes today, the last one at the end of the day, so I have to stay the whole day. I'm already feeling tired this morning and the words on the computer are getting blurry, so after three classes and an hour's drive home I will probably be good and dead.

I'm going to get a sub and eat it on the way home, so that when I get home I can take a nap for about an hour/hour-and-a-half before my match. Maybe that will refresh me enough to play well. I had plenty of time to plan this strategy while I lay in bed last night. This plan can only work, though, if I can fall asleep.