Category : Blogs

Sub Category : LifeStyle

I don’t always know what keeps me up at night. Maybe tonight it’s the thoughts rattling around in my brain, or the throbbing pain in my wrist and swollen fingers that I can’t explain or shake free of. It could also be the anxiety twisting in my stomach at the concern over having a sick boy (strep throat for the billionth time). He’s going in for a referral for surgery soon (goodbye tonsils). Or maybe it’s the distant whistle of the train in town rattling down rusty tracks that I seem to only be able to hear in the dead of winter when the trees are bare because it allows sounds to bounce around twisty mountains. The wind must be unforgiving tonight because it’s shrieking at me through a gap in the pane and sending tingles over the sensitive skin on the bare parts of my body. The dog is snoring rhythmically... she should be putting me to sleep by now but instead I’m mentally adding things to my to-do list for tomorrow that I’ll somehow manage to accomplish one-handed. I’m not sure it’s even possible to muck a stall with one hand is it? My husband is capable of falling asleep in any position, anywhere and when I’m as exhausted as I am tonight... I’m so envious of his super power that I’d like to reach over and throttle him so we can suffer insomnia together. After all marriage IS about team spirit... it’s only fair. He was a soldier and he slept in foxholes occasionally. He’s told me many times that sleeping in foxholes was the secret to sleep training his body. “Once you do that, you can sleep wherever.” 
Honesty, I think it has more to do with the fact that he is a man and his brain has an off switch. Mine definitely doesn’t. I’ve spent hours laying in one direction or another. I’ve watched the clock torture me. Too tired to read, to awake to sleep. In a matter of hours the sun will be up and with it, so will my kiddo. He’ll want breakfast and somehow I’ll have to make it through the day while being productive. My donkey Caspian will sing the very off-tune song of his people in a demand for hay. I’ll have five cats banging at the door and yelling at me from my bedroom window because they will have empty bowls by then. Moose our farm dog will beg me to let her out to pee, and there’s a dead possum to burry because earlier in the night she killed it for trying to mess with the hens & equine (she got a treat for that... possums carry EPM). Harlow will be pawing the ground demanding his portion of oats, and I have two big bunnies (Violet & Jellybean) who will be doing flips to get my attention so I’ll feed them first. Long nights lead to even longer days. Please oh-please Lord, let sleep come.