12.21 a.m. Welcome to the first meeting of Naperville Insomniacs Anonymous. As the newly (self) appointed president, I realize I’m blowing my cover before we even begin, but after tossing and turning since I got into bed at 10.30 p.m. I decided it was time to take charge. While I’m not exactly proud to take on this new role, I know I have a lot of members out there. Am I right, ladies over 45?
12.36 a.m. I’m not quite sure exactly when this all started or why. All I know is these days I sleep like a baby, by which I mean I wake up either hot, cold, hungry or in need of the bathroom every 20 minutes.
1.03 a.m. Is this going to be a night where I’m awake for a little while or one where I don’t sleep at all? My doctor suggested I take melatonin during the night if I can’t sleep but if I sleep too heavily, I wake with a migraine. Whether this is better or worse than the headache I get from not sleeping at all is debatable, which I can fortunately debate further if I’m still awake at 6.55 a.m.
1.27 a.m. It’s really not a good idea to keep looking at the clock. It’s funny, during the day noon to 7 p.m. can go pretty fast. You can pack a lot in. All that cooking, eating, cleaning, working, walking, watching TV, listening to the radio, goes by in a flash. But at nighttime, time definitely slows down. While making a conscious effort not to look at the clock I begin to feel a little strange. Is this sleepiness finally taking over? Yes! I feel a little lightheaded, a little groggy, I feel a warm blanket of darkness soothing me. I’m definitely going to fall asleep any second. Goodnight!
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1.40 a.m. I open one eye. I did fall asleep. Yes! But now I’m awake. Surely, I must have slept for hours though? That darn clock, the one I don’t look at, must be slow. I’ll just check my phone. Where are my glasses? Nope, I slept for less than 15 minutes and now I’ve looked at my phone I see I have some important emails I simply must check.
2.07 a.m. OK, so I probably didn’t need to know Romana Dupree was anxious to help me develop the website I don’t have at two o’clock in the morning, but it’s one less thing I have to do tomorrow. What do I have to do tomorrow? What shall we have for dinner? When shall I start my next diet? What should I eat on that diet?
3.10 a.m. If I were asleep at this point, I definitely would have been woken by my dog. Daisy likes to jump off the bed and make her way to the bathroom once or twice a night. By that I mean she trots into the bathroom and usually relieves herself all over the floor. I toss and turn, deliberating whether to pretend she hasn’t or clear it up immediately. What makes it worse, if that’s possible, is that her nails beat on the floor louder than a team of Irish dancers. Why is every sound amplified in the middle of the night?
3.15 a.m. It’s quite therapeutic cleaning the floor in the middle of the night. Makes me feel I’ve done something useful, plus it will be all fresh by the time I wake up, sorry get up, in the morning. I wonder briefly if I should walk Daisy in the middle of the night when I can’t sleep, but since it’s harder to wake her than a teenager, I decide against it. My neighbors think I’m weird enough as it is.
3.25 a.m. This is usually the time Grumpy starts to snore. When I was growing up in England, there was a railroad running along the back of the yard and I swear the trains never disturbed me. If I complain, my husband always counters by saying I snore too. But even if I do, it can’t be for very long because I’m never asleep for more than five minutes at a time!
3.30 a.m. I’ve read (often in the middle of the night when I’m scouring Google for advice) that reading can help. The worst thing is to lie there worrying you can’t sleep so it’s best to take your mind off it. The problem is that I’ve got in the habit of reading psychological thrillers; the twisty, turny ones you just can’t put down so that doesn’t help. I realized I was in trouble when I completed an entire book in one night.
3.59 a.m. I contemplate switching on the TV to watch the 4 a.m. news. For those of you who haven’t ever done this, can I let you into a little secret? There’s never any difference between the news at 10 p.m. and the one they broadcast six hours later. Sure, they try to lure you in by getting a head start on your day, but the reality is nothing ever happens over night! I can testify to this because I’m usually monitoring every hour of it. I’m a bit of a news junky and watch NBC news from 4 to 6 p.m. most days, but why I do not know. Some stories are repeated about four times in each segment, then it all starts again half an hour later. Just in case you don’t catch it then, some bits will pop up again the following day. Don’t get me started on the weather! How many times do we need to hear the same information? If Brant Miller tells us at 4:10 a.m. that it’ll be chilly at 6 a.m., why will that piece of information change by 4:20 a.m.?
4.20 a.m. After Brant Miller tells me it’s going to be chilly at 6 a.m., I start to plan the day’s wardrobe. I’ll need my heaviest coat if I take Daisy out at 7 a.m. but if, as is likely, she’ll stick her nose out of the door head straight back to bed before we take a foot outside, I’ll only need a light jacket. Seems an almost insurmountable problem when you’ve been awake all night.
5.40 a.m. By now I’m verging on delirium. What did I read the other day about what happens to people who don’t sleep between midnight at 4 a.m.? Why is the delicata squash season so darn short? If I write this column now, will it read like gibberish when I proofread it later? Should I just get up and make a cup of tea or will that make me need the bathroom in 40 minutes? Did I clean up after Daisy? Why is sleep apnea so popular and how on earth can sufferers sleep with vacuum hoses stuck to their faces? Can I take a nap while watching the afternoon news or will I miss the one time breaking news actually refers to something happening now and not eight hours ago?
7.30 a.m. Time to get up, or should that be give up? The relief that another night is over is almost as refreshing as if I’d have slept through some of it.
Hilary Decent is a freelance journalist who moved from England to Naperville in 2007.