Trouble Sleeping

It's midnight during a full moon. I'm standing alone on the water's edge of the ocean. I'm wearing a billowing white gown and can feel the wind whipping my wavy hair around my face. I can feel the stickiness of the humidity and taste the salt on my lips. I feel the cool water as it rushes over my feet. I feel the water recede. In my mind, I know there is a pier less than half a mile away to my north. Behind, unseen, are the condos where tourists come to enjoy their summer vacations. No one is in them. No one is on the pier. It's just me. The night. The moon. The ocean. The wind. I feel the water... it is progressing and receding in time with my breath. As I am breathing in, the ocean is taking back its precious water. As I exhale, the waves are crashing down and coming upon the beach. Breathe in... breathe out. in... out... in... out...

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This is what I see as I'm falling asleep. It is what helps to settle me. It stops my brain from thinking about anything else. I love this scene. Unfortunately, lately, it hasn't been working. I can replay this image over and over in my head. I can concentrate in excess of 30 minutes on my breathing alone, and I'm still awake, two hours later. It took me until 4 o'clock in the morning and two Tylenol PM's to get me to finally fall asleep last night/this morning.

I love my sleep as much as the next person, but I'm not necessarily the most irritable if I don't get it. I'm more irritable if I attempt to take a nap, get to sleep, only to be awoken 15 minutes later. I generally can function just fine on roughly 4 hours of sleep, but here lately, I'm not even getting that. I just can't seem to get my brain to stop moving. It is so frustrating to want to sleep and you can't stop thinking about it long enough to actually fall asleep. I've got out caffeine. I don't get all worked up in the evenings. If I play a video game or something, I make sure I have ample time to calm down before I try to fall asleep.

I'm sure that stress is the main culprit here. And there is absolutely nothing I can do about it until it wants to be handled. I'm hoping that tonight I will be able to sleep more soundly and get there faster, but only time will tell.

Good night!