the usual, i'm very tired and the universe hates me, at least a little

I'm thinking about insomnia, mostly because, welcome to my life, I get it a lot. It's rarely physical, either, which is the part that sucks. I can be so tired I can't see straight, but my mind doesn't--quite--turn off. Which I suppose is what insomnia is. And it's rarely useful thinking, though it's loud. Well, except for a few times when I was writing And All the World Beneath and I jerked myself up and wrote out what I'd finally worked out. I mean, at least that's useful and makes it worth it to want to die all day at work.



What bothers me is there's always a window, probably fifteen minutes, where I can feel the drift downward start and I fight it; I don't mean to, but I don't like the loss of control of my body. I'm picky with everything, even with how I sleep; I want it fast and I want the amnesia that doesn't let me remember how it happened. It makes me wonder if I always fight it and just don't remember it, or if sometimes I'm tired even after I've slept for hours, if I was fighting it the entire time.

It's kind of terrifying, come to think of it, especially when I read about it and discovered sleep-paralysis (now that was a moment I won't forget); lucid dreaming (what if I don't like what I'm dreaming? What if I want out?); seriously, I create my own issues when it comes to sleep. But--but years ago, while I was in X-Men (and I notice these days I chart my life in my fandoms; it's the most accurate measure of time I've ever used), I had a jaw infection that kept me up two days straight and also, wow, I can honestly state that was worse than labor, and labor I do not remember fondly). I took a hydrocodone when I got home and in fifteen minutes hit the couch like a rock; now that, I didn't fight. I remember the utter, unbreathing gratitude of it when I could shut down my body and my head and just rest. I don't even know if I dreamed. It was good. That was good.

I'm irritable when I don't get enough sleep, but I'm worse when I get too much. That's purely psychological; I associate sleep with depression, because I was doing eighteen hours a day sleep then and the conditioning sticks.

The thinking is narrative--the stuff that keeps me awake, that is. Like I said, not useful but weirdly entertaining, and insomnia aside, that can keep me in bed, following the story wherever it might lead. Pretty sure I drift in and out some during that, when I lose a train of thought and feel blank space behind it and know something was there that's not anymore. I wrote about John and Ronon for hours in my head before I poured it into the words that shaped it come daylight, and there's so much that never met the page and never will. There's a history I can feel sometimes that I've forgotten; I know there are reasons for some of what I wrote, but I don't remember them because they were the seconds before I fought my body and lost. It's fascinating to wonder how often it happens. I wonder how much I write before I ever touch a keyboard, how much is clinging to the back of my mind and spills out so suddenly in a flow I wouldn't stop even if I could. I suppose that could be where it comes from, the sudden starts of need, now, do it now and I usually do, because I'm a creature of pleasure and writing gets me higher than anything I've ever done and can keep me there for days; reading does it too, but I'm read/write and if I'm writing I get them both at once. The story was finished and was taking needed space, and my mind was ready for something new, now, thanks.

I'm almost sure there's an argument regarding creativity in this, but damned if I know. I'm too tired to write. But not too tired to think and remember when night was the only time the words came together. Maybe I conditioned myself to that as well. Who the hell knows.

It's not just now though; it's always, like a crowd murmuring in the background of my mind, often with a soundtrack to accompany it, and everything is a story I store away to tell; myself, other people, the occasional strangely realistic dream where that so called supply closet at work is lined with green light and spills over the floor like water toward my feet. Luckily, even when I'm dreaming I know better than to stay around and find out what it is. I run.

And I can tell this day is going to go swimmingly. Probable sad lj posts in the future about my misery. Possibly accompanied with whining.