Crap

I can’t sleep.

My brain just won’t – turn off.

And don’t get me wrong… I’m not claiming to be some super-genius whose brain won’t quit because I’m thinking of ways to alter the course of humanity. I’m just saying the damn thing won’t stop working long enough to give me a moment’s peace.

I’ve always had trouble going to sleep. I would lie in bed for probably an hour or two every night when I was growing up before finally drifting off. Throughout the years it really hasn’t changed much. There was a brief period during my freshman year of college when I managed to fall asleep within five minutes of hitting the pillow. I am told that was also a period filled with snoring, and can attest to the fact that it was accompanied by much drooling. I think I had a little trouble adjusting to college life and actually physically exhausted myself for the first time in history.

Although… I’m exhausted now and it’s doing me no good.

These days the one to two hour limbo time is turning into three or four. Last night it was five. Well… I say five only because after hour five I got up and out of bed so I could get on with the day.

I tried sleeping pills a few times – no luck. I think I’m just destined not to sleep at night.

I seem to have better luck sleeping during the day… maybe I really am a vampire…

Anyway.

As I lay in bed, mind churning, I wonder why exactly I must think of these things rather than go to sleep. I mean, there’s nothing really earth-shattering about any of them. Sometimes they’re reminders to myself – don’t forget to pay the rent, haircut Tuesday, you forgot to call Mom back, etc.

Those are the only ones I can rationalize as actually needing to be running through my head.

The others?

Last night I spent a good 20 minutes trying to figure out what Mary Chapin Carpenter meant when she sang, “Sometimes you’re the windshield, sometimes you’re the bug.”

Is one of these options supposed to be the pleasant one? It would seem from the next line (Sometimes it all comes together, then sometimes you’re the fool in love) that it’s a sometimes you win, sometimes you lose scenario. But who is the winner in the bug/windshield pairing? The disemboweled insect or the sheet of glass with bug juice smeared all over it? That’s like saying sometimes you’re the bird crap and sometimes you’re the head it lands on. Who wants to be either?

Why does this keep me up at night? Don’t I have better things to do with my time?

Are you listening, Subconscious??? Shut OFF!