The Mother of Insomnia (Monday Memories)

I have really terrible insomnia lately. I’ve had it before in my life, but never for weeks on end. It’s not my 6-month-old bub Charlotte- she sleeps soundly through the night, only waking once for a small soothe, if at all. It’s me- ALL me. Maybe it’s my horribly stiff neck and back?

I finally fell asleep at around 12:30am this morning, when I was promptly woken by that oh so familiar ‘meeeeeooooow’, at my door. Reaching over I read my phone, all bleary-eyed and found that it was 3am. Okay 2 and half hours of sleep- not bad. My cat Thomas is fifteen-years-old and since the day I brought him home, he has very rarely woken me up at night. It was just the start to my lucky day. Could I sleep again? No. I sprayed my tongue with sleep remedy and lay there in hope, until my partner’s horrendous alarm went off at 6am.

It was the moment I decided that I would have to venture out in the storm, which has been raging through Queensland for days now, and go to the chemist to get some sleeping pills. Not the heavy ones- I have to wake up to the baby on the monitor- just something to knock me out a little.

Up I got, back aching, sore shoulders, grumpy as hell- and then I went and looked at my angel in her cot, smiling up at me and giggling. All the crap melted away in an instant. Suddenly, nothing was as bad as it had seemed five minutes ago. Ever had one of those moments?

So, we went through our morning routine, mine involving copious amount of caffeine, and I decided it was time to brave it. Putting up an umbrella I took my baby out into the storm and headed 3 minutes up the road, in the Pajero. There were not many people about. I parked the car and got out, umbrella flopping around like crazy and quickly becoming more of a hindrance than a help.

I took out Charlotte’s pram and for the first time, attempted to don it with her new, fandangle, plastic, storm-cover. Sounds simple enough right? Ha! I covered the pram and the thing flew right off. I ditched the umbrella and gave in, letting the storm saturate me. It was more important to try to keep the pram covered, to stop the rain from soaking it. There were Velcro bits everywhere, none of them matched up and the moment I let go it would fly away again.

Finally when I got the damn thing on right, I had to try not to hold Charli too close to my soaking, wet body. I poked my arms underneath, strapped her in and took a proud look at the excellent job I’d done, at keeping my baby dry. Me? No such luck. I looked like a wet poodle.

Promptly dropping off the DVD- ‘Hit and Run’ (great movie by the way), I headed over to the chemist to find that my wallet was no longer in my pocket. Had I put it in my pocket at all? Returning to the car, I went for a search and realised that I had left it at home. I scrounged around to put some change together, maybe the chemist ladies would take pity on me and give me the sleeping pills on credit- they know me, I’ve been going there for years. Surely they would let me call them to give them my credit card details, or something, later on.

Certain that I would find a way around it, and with bub in her pram, dry as a bone; I headed over to the chemist doors. They were closed.

There was a public holiday sign hanging on the door. I knew that because the DVD shop was not open either, but I was so tired, I had failed to observe anything other than my poor, poor self.

I headed back to the car. When I took Charlotte up to the house, the umbrella in my hand flew out and I watched it tumble down the road. I let it go, went inside, sat on my couch and looked at Charli. She was still giggling. How could she find this all so funny?

Then I realised…

It was funny.

It was a MAJOR moment for me. I really got something this morning.

There was nothing I could do about my morning- absolutely nothing. Not only that, but there was only one thing I had control over in that exact moment and that was: what I chose to focus upon.

I realised that the only thing we ever truly have control over, is how we choose to respond. I sat there and laughed… hard. If anyone had seen me, they’d have thought me crazy. I laughed about the fact that I had actually been going about thinking that I had control over everything in my life. It was obvious to me then, that the more that I pushed, prodded and poked and tried to MAKE my life perfect, the more I was losing it.

A line from the mentoring my boss gave us recently, popped into my head:

‘The more you try to control things, the less control you have.’

It rang so true to me today.

Maybe if I let go of trying to control everything in my life and let it happen a little more, perhaps then- my back and shoulders won’t be so stiff and rigid and perhaps, I’ll get some sleep.

Peace

HMC

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