Insomnia

The General woke me up this morning at one thirty because she couldn’t sleep. So, of course, that means I’m up for the rest of the night. I’d like to yell at her and tell her to deal with her own insomnia, except that wouldn’t be very parental of me. She rarely comes to get me at night regardless of what’s going on, so I don’t want to give her any additional reasons to avoid me. But that means no sleep for me.

As I lay in bed trying unsuccessfully to fall back asleep, my mind started whirling in a million different directions. First I tried thinking of any of the manuscripts I’m currently writing or editing—for some weird reason, that often puts me to sleep Hopefully the published books don’t have that effect on readers, unless I want to advertise them as a cure for insomnia, which I don’t. But thinking about all of them made me realize I’m working on a lot of manuscripts at once. And for those that wonder, counting manuscripts is NOT like counting sheep.

Then I noticed how loudly my husband breathes.

Since thinking about what I was already writing wasn’t working, I tried plotting out a charity novella I’m going to be working on for my publisher. I might have actually come up with a plot, except it never fully formed—kind of like that dream you can’t remember after you awaken. And all it did was stress me out over making my deadline.

Then I noticed how loudly my husband breathes.

Stress made me think of all the things I have to do, and all the things I have to remind my kids to do. And that led me downstairs, so that I didn’t wake my husband. Because his loud breathing indicates he’s sleeping. And one of us (him) should get a good night’s sleep so that they (he) can deal with the other one (me) who’s going to be really, really cranky.