Swimming Against the Tide

Though blessed with a handful of achievements that I am proud to have fulfilled, I have to say that my greatest one is waking up at 6:45 every morning to go to work. For normal people, this is tiddlywinks. But for the insomniac, having a day job takes a slightly different meaning. No matter how exhausted I am, I can never hit the hay earlier than 11:30 p.m. I think that I can count twice when I went to sleep at a decent hour, one of them being transoceanic jet lag, and the other my worst case of flu in ten years. Then, the nightly ritual begins. Spray some lavender on my sheets. Flip through all of the channels. Twice. Empty my bladder three times. Check the thermostat. Remember that I forgot something critical for tomorrow, so turn on the lamp and write it on my hand so that there is no chance I will forget to do it. I did this a few weeks ago, and a colleague asked me what was on my hand. I showed him that I had written the message twice, once on my palm in addition to the outside of my hand.

Some nights are worse than others, but more often than not, I take too long to fall asleep, and then I wake several times in the night. I avoid all things stimulating after 8:00 p.m., and yes, regular exercise is a part of my permanent lifestyle. I used to think that all this was linked to stress, but even now that I am on vacation, I am not sleeping as I should. I've done my research on melatonin, circadian rhythms, sleep psychology, etc. It's very simple, but there is not much I can do about it. My body wants to be on its own schedule, not what is imposed by the business world. Ideally, I would get a job that is more suited for being a night owl. However, I adore my career as a teacher so much that there is no reconciling the two issues at hand. You know, most schools do tend to run on a morning schedule, though I have heard of some proposals to start school just a couple of hours later in the day because of bussing the kids so early in the morning. Believe me, I would jump on that bandwagon faster than I'd pick up a winning lottery ticket.