And When I Have Fears and I Can't Sleep

Sleep has not come easy to me lately.


Age, stress, worry, lack of adequate physical exercise, or perhaps all of the aforementioned conditions (or perhaps a few I have not thought of)  have left me awake and restless through the night, far more often than I would like.


A full night with 6-7 hours of uninterrupted sleep has not been part of my daily slumbers for more months than I care to remember.


Tonight is no exception. I have to get up around 3:30 am and leave for the airport around 4 am. The first leg of my flight back to Maryland departs at 5:15 AM.


I started to panic a few minutes ago but as I have always done my entire life when the stress in my life begins to threaten to overwhelm me, I turn to books and usually can find an escape in the stories of the triumphs and travails of others, (fictional or not). 


Tonight, as I searched through some titles I came across a book that was a gift from Lori a few years back. 


It is a book of blank lined pages for those who cannot sleep during the night to take out and write down those thoughts that so often only appear after dark and always seem most dire then.


It is inter-spaced with sayings and quotes by certain notables or celebrities who have at one time or the other faced the dilemma of being unable to sleep.


I thought I would share a few with you. 


John Milton, "What hath night to do with sleep?"


C.S Lewis, "Many things - such as loving, going to sleep, or behaving unaffectedly - are done worst we try hardest to do them."


Chuck Palahniuk, "When you have insomnia, you're never really asleep, and you're never really awake."


James Keller, "It is better to light one candle than to curse the darkness."


Lynn Johnston, "Not being able to sleep is terrible. You have the misery of having partied all night ...without the satisfaction."


Charles M. Schultz, "Sometimes I lie awake at night, and ask,, "Where have I gone wrong?" Then a voice says to me, "This is going to take more than one night."


F. Scott Fitzgerald, "In a real dark night of the soul it is always three o'clock in the morning."


Dorothy Parker, "How do people go to sleep? I'm afraid I have lost the knack."


Frank Sinatra, "I'm for anything that gets you through the night, be it prayer, tranquilizers, or a bottle of Jack Daniel's". 


Mark Twain, "I realize that from the cradle up I have been like the rest of the race - never quite sane in the night". 


F. Scott Fitzgerald (again). "The worst thing in the world is to try to sleep and not to. " 


Evelyn Waugh, " I haven't been to sleep for over a year. That's why I go to bed early. One needs more rest if one doesn't sleep". 


William Faulkner, "Tomorrow's night is nothing but one long sleepless wrestle with yesterday's omissions and regrets". 


Charlotte Bronte, "A ruffled mind makes a restless pillow". 


Jules Feiffer, "I told the doctor I was overtired, anxiety ridden, compulsively active, constantly depressed with recurring fits of paranoia. Turns out I"m normal". 


Jessamyn West, "Sleeplessness is a desert without vegetation or inhabitants".


George Carlin, "There are nights when the wolves are silent and only the moon howls". 


And finally I leave you with a personal favorite,


W.C. Fields, "The best cure for insomnia is to get a lot of sleep".


So, it is now almost 11 PM and I have to be up in 4 1/2 hours. 


Sleep it seems will elude me yet again this night but the quotes above and many more, from this little book, entitled, "I Can't Sleep" have brought me comfort despite that fact.