Stories of a Life Not So Well Lived

My eyes are heavy, like large cement bags weighing me down into the mattress. My whole body is relaxed and ready for the rest that tonight brings. My breathing is steady and slow, yet sleep still escapes me. Night after night I lay awake staring at the blank white ceiling hoping, praying for sleep. Like a man wondering the desert my soul craves sleep like his does water.

More often than not sleep doesn’t come until the small hours of the morning when the birds begin to chirp, and sing. Some nights, not at all. Tossing and turning my joints start to ache and sting. Pain always comes with my lack of dreams. Cracking and popping I feel like I am trapped in the body of a much older woman. My entire life spent wondering, do I hurt because I cannot sleep or do I not sleep because I hurt. The answer is as elusive as sleep itself.

An entire day with hunched shoulders and begrudging footsteps, shuffling through my days on auto pilot only thinking of the sweet moment that I finally lay in my bed. Finally the mattress greets my back with perfect softness, the sheets luxuriously hold me body like a caress of silk and hope. My pillow is fluffy and feels like a cloud, lifting my head just right. My pajamas discarded onto the floor So that I can feel the linens in their fullness.

Pure bliss is the moment where I climb atop my bed and lay under a large cotton blanket that rivals the texture of a beautiful little lamb. I can think of no better conditions for drifting quietly into unconsciousness. However sleep never comes, only tears flowing out of my eyes like rivers filled with pain and a need for rest. Exhaustion is no longer a powerful enough word for the tears of tiredness that I produce.

Tears stream down my pale cheeks as I silently plead with the gods, any gods, to let me sleep. Please I beg of you all, of anyone, please ease my suffering and let me sleep! The warm embrace of my dreams has all but been forgotten and the smile that comes with waking rested has long since faded.

Like an addict longs to scratch their itch I too long to satisfy a need. A pile of white noise machines, sleep medications and other useless products cast aside in a box behind my bedside table. Sometimes I fear that my quest is futile, perhaps I will never feel the way I once felt waking refreshed on a Sunday morning, ready to seize the day. Perhaps I am doomed to shuffle through my days chasing after something I cannot have.

I lay here drained and weakened, straining to find something to help, anything at all. A new position, a new pill, a new remedy for my invisible condition. Falling asleep now seems a prize I was never meant to win. Chasing, hoping, praying for rest, my chest is tight with desperation as I lay there helplessly in the dark, chasing sleep. I begin to wonder how long I can survive in this state

Why, why does sleep elude me? Why! I cry out into the void that is my bedroom, why is this happening to me? I walk my days as a zombie, the undead barely keeping my eyes open but when my head hits the pillow it’s as if all of the tiredness is suctioned out of my body. Trying to keep my weeping silent I think of all the reasons my suffering began all those years ago, but I do not think my memories reach that far backwards.

Maybe if I had tried harder or ate better or helped out that one stranger I might be asleep right now. Maybe if I was better the glorious gift of rest would be bestowed upon me like the shining crown of jewels it seems to be. It seems now as distant and unreachable as the Arc of The Covenant itself. Maybe if I cross the world I will one day find it.

My neck grows weak as my heads dips forward, my eyes close and my body seems to begin to fade. Finally the sweet, sweet euphoria of sleep. My pulse slows and my mind stops racing from the day. It feels like hours have gone by, and sadly they have. Almost setting my first foot into dreamland and I feel light. Then, suddenly, my house lets out a loud creak and the process starts again. My eyes are heavy...

-I have suffered with falling asleep my entire life and it impacts me daily. This is how it feels every night to lay in bed.