Last night I went to bed and slept like a dead rock. It was glorious. It was restful. The dreams were fantastic and detailed, leading me through a wonderland of thoughts and emotions and interesting "what-ifs."

Tonight, no such luck. I went to bed tired. The day was busy, packing boxes of books, hauling them around, digging up a portion of a front yard to plant a bean teepee for my grandson. (That bean teepee's another post, I promise.) Cutting errant saplings, driving through some gorgeously green countryside, having a lively discussion about a book with my husband, shopping for a prom dress with my daughter, coming back here and baking cookies, then watching a movie with her.

None of these things add up to pain or disturbance or worry or hand-wringing that I associate with being unable to sleep. But here I am sitting at the keyboard at 3 o'clock and change in the morning. My eyes are wide open. My brain is clicking through thoughts one after another. My back, while it feels like it helped lug heavy boxes around today, doesn't hurt.

But I'm finding myself in the peculiar sadness that accompanies being awake at this time of day. I wonder if I'm a good person. I question my ability to be a competent parent. I ask if I'm a worthy partner in my marriage. It's an insidious undermining of self-confidence that happens.

This time of day, the minutes in each hour seem to spin out, thinner and longer, like a clear sugar syrup getting more concentrated as it cooks and being able to be pulled into longer and more maleable lengths. Television doesn't help as this is prime time for hucksters of gadgets you don't need but that your addled insomnia brain insists will fill some empty space in your life.

On other nights like this, I used to play infinite games of solitaire with  actual cards. There's something to be said for the tactile feel of them slipping through the fingers, the sound of riffling them with your hands to shuffle, watching the patterns emerge of which cards come up. It's strangely mesmerizing.

And all the while the lizard brain† is twisting and turning, trying to figure out what it's thinking about. The primate brain is simultaneously trying to determine how to shut the lizard down and go to sleep.

So I'll sit here for a while and read and hope that at some point, physiology will take over and I'll slink off to bed to sleep some more.

 *In the spirit of Leonde Delmare's thought- and discussion-provoking post The Mystique of Makeup. Perhaps eyeshadow is what I need to crawl into to make myself go to sleep?

†You can read some more about the lizard brain here. But make sure to come back when you're finished. %;-)

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Here's a photo taken of me this morning (just a few minutes ago at 9:45 Eastern time actually) so that you can have proof that I did sleep. It was only a few hours but I think it's primed the pump somewhat so that I can go back and get some more. Please note for your files the enchanting Mickey Mouse pajamas that look so fetching at any time of day or night. Thanks for all your good wishes and goodwill! You are all wonderful people!

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