maike

From birth, I've been cursed by an inability to fall asleep easily, and sleepiness is most definitely not induced because some clock indicates 22:51. For a long time, while my ex was still willing to share a bed, this caused no shortage of hours staring at a dark ceiling or listening to crickets, accompanied by the inevitable worrying about bills or any momentary irregularity of my heartbeat. She had the ability and need to fall asleep at a specific time each day, and if I came to bed after she was asleep this woke her and she was angry. You know the type of anger: you should feel guilty for breathing, for living, for failing to act exactly how I want you to act...

Eventually I solved the issue of her frequent anger, which eventually extended way beyond interrupting her sleep, simply by selling the house and saying good-bye. I also learned not to fight the clock. These freedoms brought a happy roaming of deserted streets, or endless reading, or a focus on some real or imagined issue demanding a solution, well into the night usually or past dawn occasionally. I lay down when I'm beyond tired, and effortlessly drift into sleep.

The huge downside to whatever chemistry causes persistent insomnia is the inability to naturally awake at a time generally accepted as responsible and reasonable. When I travel there are inevitably early flights or trains, early meetings, or the tricks of traversing time zones, and I get less and less sleep. It is not uncommon for some days to run to 20 or 25 hours, and the cumulative effect is higher and higher levels of fatigue.

But, here's the rub: I like it. It is my drug of choice. There is an absolute inner stillness when the ability to process complex thought is broken by fatigue, when being tired becomes a primary sensation accompanied by feelings of reduced body temperature and respiration rate. Some nights, once I'm well past the point of productive thought and function, I continue to stay awake just so that I can enjoy the feeling.

One of my friends, who has one of the most conforming sleep patterns I know (up at 5 every day), keeps suggesting one of the various drugs to induce sleep on a timetable. A drug to suppress the pleasure of another drug, methadone for fatigue. I ain't doing it. Taking that pill is turning back to the command of others, submission to time, and acceptance of the concept that life must be scheduled.

I'm freebasing right now, two hours past the point of extreme drowsiness. So good; damn good. Spellchecker doesn't recognize freebasing, and that makes me smile.