No, I am not chasing stars, trying to catch a rainbow or score for a famous football team. The goal that eludes me, is I’m afraid to say something far more mundane and basic. Something that most people take for granted, that they wouldn’t give a second thought to, that comes so naturally to every living thing in the animal kingdom. Yes, I am talking once again about sleep.
How I yearn to go to bed and close my eyes, to wake up and find it is a new day. To greet each morning feeling renewed and refreshed, with joy and enthusiasm. Instead I spend night alternately tossing or turning in a fruitless quest to sleep, or wandering around the house hoping that I may just reach a new level of exhaustion that will send me off into the unknown for at least a few hours.
Other people I know look forward to their days, they make plans for the weekend and nights out, I concentrate on merely getting through each day. I have to set reminders on my phone so I remember to go places, collect children or take them to their activities. I even have one to remind me to do the shopping. I am so tired that I will pick up the phone and forget who I was about to ring, I lose my train of thought half way through a sentence and often will have no idea what I even began to talk about. I ask questions then immediately forget the answers.
At the moment, just putting one foot in front of the other takes a tremendous effort, the kids keep asking why I have walked or come on the bus to collect them, why can’t we use the car. We can’t use the car because I don’t feel safe driving it, even locally around routes I know well. I am afraid that I may drop off at the wheel, or lose concentration, and subsequently control of the car. My reflexes are not what they should be, and behind the wheel of a lethal machine is the last place I want to put them to the test. Besides which, how could I ever live with myself if something happened to one of the children while I was driving, so we walk or use the bus.
I get through each day, doing the minimum of housework, cooking etc., only the very essential things get done. My whole being craves sleep, my mind is befuddled and confused but will not settle. I have tried everything, yoga, aromatherapy massages, no caffeine, no chocolate, vitamins, herbal remedies, hypnosis CDs, binaural beats. Every remedy I can lay my hands on, but so far nothing has worked. I have had one night’s sleep in the last month and that actually left me feeling worse. My GP refuses to prescribe anything that may give me a night’s sleep, too addictive apparently. It is “probably just a phase, a time in my life”, something I need to learn to accept as I get older and my body changes. I wonder how many doctors would accept night after night of lying awake wondering when sleep will come?
I need a reason, a cure not excuses. So that is my goal for now, I am giving up on trying to sleep and going to focus on finding out why it so eludes me, if it is just that time of life then surely there must be something that be done about it. I see no reason why in this age of knowledge and technology I should have to suffer so.