I'LL SLEEP WHEN I'M DEAD

It’s 3am and nothing in the refrigerator looks good for a famed “Midnight” snack. Warm milk tastes awful so insomnia will win this night, as most nights. What choice is there other than turning the TV back on, grab a glass of ice water and write. I find a biopic about Dean Martin & Jerry Lewis (one of my favorites) and settle into what can only be described as an “I hope I don’t collapse later” kind of night. It’s dark outside and I should have fallen to sleep a long time ago but alas here I am with Martin & Lewis, my computer and a cold glass of ice water.

I guess there are many causes that keeps one from getting the sleep they need. Lucky for me, I've never required much, so four or five hours is enough, I guess. But what causes insomnia or as my mom used to call it, “the big eye?” It could be a disorder, or just too much sleep the night before. Perhaps its stress or just a lot on your mind. Could there be an argument made for a bit of all of that or maybe other stuff? Maybe it’s just a colicky baby crying, a new puppy or your babies just not being babies anymore. Whatever the reason, here you sit not sleeping.

What keeps me awake at night varies from night to night. Some nights it’s my sinuses going crazy. Those nights I just hate. I can’t breathe, I can’t get comfortable and my head eventually just hurts. Other nights I lay there and just think. I think about what is on my mind, what stresses me out or a new bit for my show. Even a mind like mine can have a lot on it. There are bills that need to be paid, stress about what it will take to move my career up that proverbial ladder and then there’s the private stuff of which is none of your business. I feel like I should sleep. I yawn, feel my eyelids droop but yet can’t pull the trigger to doze off to dreamland.

So here I am doing this weekly blog, hoping you read it and know there is one other person who can’t sleep either. If I’m going to be nocturnal I figure I might as well get something done, right? I hear this is one of the characteristics of those that become great. Not necessarily the insomnia thing but the getting stuff accomplish in these moments. I was once told by one of my college professors we waste so much time in the bathroom when we don’t take something to read or work on. As weird or gross as that may sound, it’s true.  Insomnia is that way as well, if I am going to sit here I might as well get something accomplished.

So in the words of Sam Elliott’s character, Wade Garrett, in the movie Roadhouse, “I will get all the sleep I need when I’m dead.” Until then, here I sit, awake & alone taking another step up the ladder to success.