I can't sleep... I haven't been able to sleep for about a week now I think. I stay up until 4:30/5 o'clock in the morning until I'm finally able to pass out because my body just can't stay awake any longer and my mind is too exhaused to think anymore and then I sleep late into the afternoon. I can't help it... I'll be really tired and then I'll lay down and my mind will start to race will all of the things I still have to do and all of the worries and anxieties I have and I'll get myself so worked up that sleep is just no longer an option. Tonight I think I fell asleep, or almost fell asleep, twice, but then got woken up by the scurrying of the roaches in my walls and haven't been able to fall asleep again since. It's almost 3am, the effects of this insomnia are already taking a toll on me as I spent most of the day feeling sick and fending off a migraine and I have work at 9. Sometimes I feel like if I survive these next few weeks without having a heart attack or landing myself in the hospital some other way, it will be a miracle.
ugh...
ok... I'm done whining for now...
One of my latest episodes of insomnia occured when I wasn't able to do anything aside from lay in bed and stare at the ceiling until I fell asleep. Not fun, but it got me thinking about, well wondering about what people think about.
Let me see if I can explain this better...
I tend to a couple of elderly ladies, one of which is nearly blind, considerably deaf, and can't get around very well. Her condition doesn't allow for many activities and most of the time she is laying or sitting around... sleeping or waiting for her half of Darvocet to kick in so that she can attempt the one activity that makes her feel better - housework.
Being up late that night with nothing else to do other than lay awake and stare at the ceiling I got to thinking about her and my grandmother. After my grandfather died, my grandmother wouldn't be able to sleep or would wake up in the middle of the night and not be able to get back to sleep and so would wander her small house from room to room, looking out the window and I guess just generally thinking. Being awake the other night and thinking about her I missed her terribly and felt really sad at the thought of her wandering her house alone at night... I can't even imagine the loneliness she must have felt.
But then, I always assume that they feel lonely... and I do catch myself, but honestly I don't know what goes through their minds and it was that thought that I pondered that night as well.
After over 8 decades of life and experience... after all is said and done and life becomes... quiet, to say the least... what goes through one's mind? I know that my grandmother must have thought about my grandfather every night. She missed him and talked about him way too much for me to even question the validity of that thought... but what else? Would memories of him have brought to mind other events, other people... did she spend those evenings pacing her house, gazing out a window to see not the street below, but events from her past... people who have come and gone and who were still there? What does my elderly friend think of as she lies there on her porch, too stiff to move?
My thoughts always revolve around everything I have to do... I really need to get my printing going... oh god, two and a half weeks until I hang my show and I don't even have my postcards made up yet... I wonder if mel will have time to help me tomorrow... I really should reshoot some things... but I don't have the money... how am I going to pay the framers... my parents have done so much for me already, I don't want them to take care of this too... what if over a week is too long for them to be down here and they're just wasting their time... I haven't heard from exhibitions yet, that makes me nervous... crap, I have paperwork I need to fill out, where did I put it... still need to pack... really need to clean... have to get the word out about my show... going to have to email the postcard to some... what do I say... good god, where the hell is that roach?
on and on and on...
but then there's the rare occasion that I get a reprive... and I start thinking about the people in my life... memories of those who care about me... kind words... excitement over being able to see some of them again... and I start to drift off... to dream...
then, in the case of tonight, a roach scurries somewhere and my dreams are shattered and I'm wide awake again and freaking out...
but back to my ladies...
I always end up feeling sad for them... at first the thought of being alone to think about one's life and the people who have passed on seems upsetting... as I mentioned, I had a hard time thinking about my grandmother being awake and wandering the halls by herself, missing my grandfather... but... oh, to have those happy memories... to have loved someone so much... to have a life touched by so many others...
it is when I let go of my anxieties and remember those that love me that I am able to finally feel peace and am able to fall asleep... perhaps my two ladies simply find peace in reliving the memories life has given them and remembering how they have been loved and how they are loved...
we should all be so lucky...
here's to my friends and family... thoughts of you give me comfort... your love gives me peace...
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