Photo by Александар Цветановић from Pexels
As a self-taught knitter, I love to play with yarn. My stash is a shamefully luxurious variety of merino and silk-wool blends I love to paw over.
I am selectively, demonstratively affectionate. I’m practically in your face, inconveniently bidding for your attention until I want to be left alone. Then you might get scratched. Don’t worry. I provide an audible warning or a scowl beforehand so you can assess my interest.
If I spend time with you, it is because you have been chosen. Otherwise, I’m off doing my own thing, away from people.
I’m socially awkward. What can I say?
I have bird feeders posted around my home. I spy on the birds, squirrels, chipmunks, and stray cats who drop by regularly.
Emphatically, I hate the cold. Hate it. During the winter, I will turn my bedroom into a private hothouse, 80+ degrees blasting from a space heater mere feet from me until bedtime. Once I’ve baked in the heat long enough, for the sake of my bedmate’s comfort, I’ll turn it off. During the summer, the house is kept comfortably cool, not cold. Thankfully, as a couple, our temp preferences are often in sync.
I shed, e-v-e-r-y-w-h-e-r-e. Always have. It is annoying, but if I am kidnapped, they’ll recover me and my abductor by following the DNA trail of hair left in my wake.
I’m also not a huge fan of crowds, loud noises, our Roomba vacuum cleaner, grabby children, or aggressive dogs (I am a huge animal lover; I’m just more of a cat person).
Of course, I don’t do my business in a box or chase laser pointer lights around the house for exercise.
However, I have lost my cat-like ability to get quality sleep. Once upon a time, I could suck down a mug full of coffee (any time of the day), power nap, and come back refreshed 45 minutes later. I also slept through the night, no matter how stressed, overworked, or burnt out I was. I could get 5 solid hours a night and still hustle. I guess I’m not exactly like a cat since they sleep an average of 15 hours a day. But you get my meaning.
Being in my 40s is a fun life stage. Biological changes, even slight, can impact sleep. As such, I’ve become a light sleeper with chronic insomnia who can’t stay asleep.
Per my [WebMD degree](https://www.webmd.com/sleep-disorders/insomnia-symptoms-and-causes#:~:text=Insomnia is a sleep disorder,for 3 months or more.), “Insomnia is a sleep disorder in which you have trouble falling and/or staying asleep. The condition can be short-term (acute) or last a long time (chronic).” There are also subclassifications of primary and secondary chronic insomnia—more on that in a second.
Naturally, people wake several times a night when cycling through various stages of sleep. More often than not, though, we’re unaware this is happening. Problems arise when we wake to the point of awareness one or more times a night and struggle to fall back asleep.
In my case, I’ve been suffering chronic insomnia for at least a year, waking several times a night, nearly every night. No amount of extra time in bed frees me from the lingering fog of my previous night’s poor sleep. Many a morning, I’m zombie-ambling on autopilot until my coffee finally kicks in. Then, I’m able to function for the rest of the day. This is after I’ve attempted to sleep over a 10-hour period.