Insomnia

It's not the inability to sleep that does it. It's knowing that it just won't happen tonight. I'm going to yawn, try to doze off, try to at least get some rest, laying there in my bed while my thoughts keep spinning, and spinning... and then just fade because I'm too tired. I'm too tired to sleep.

And when the mind finally goes numb enough, then the body starts to react: muscles grow very restless, and then so very heavy... The stomach wants to be filled, it has been empty for far too long, and turns sour. Joints ache, ears throb, and there's always something, somewhere, that is itching.

And the pressure to sleep makes everything else pop up, until everything that has to be done is spinning around the room like the proverbial Mara, ruining the night. I have to sleep, I have things I have to do tomorrow, and I need the energy. And once you realize how late it is, and how badly you have to get that rest now, that is when it becomes absolutely impossible. Trying to force oneself to sleep never works.

But I have to sleep, or at least lay still and quiet. There's a man sleeping next to me who needs his rest just as much, probably more, than I do and it's not fair to him to keep him up just because I can't sleep.

I want to sleep. I need my sleep.