Up until the past year I’ve never had a problem sleeping. I could lay my head down and in five minutes be out cold.

And I used to sleep like the dead.

Not so much anymore.

Everything affects me- Much more so than it ever did before.

I’m now sensitive to sound. It’s as if I have developed super sonic hearing. I swear to God I can hear someone talking 5 miles away. I hear every creak, groan, and crack the house makes at night. As much as I not to let my imagination run away with me with God knows what I might think – Aliens, home invasion, robbers, who knows. The truth is I’m sure it’s always the house settling.

My husband snores- This does not help. I can hear the neighbors snoring. It’s just not help.

My room has to be cool, and dark. No light or I don’t sleep. God help me if I’m over warm or sweating.

Last night there was a symphony of bullfrogs out in the meadow across the way making their beautiful music. Do you think that their lullaby could put me to sleep? No unfortunately I don’t know how long they kept me up. What began as something beautiful and reminiscent of my childhood shortly became irritating because I couldn’t sleep.

The rain used to be my natural sleeping pill. The harder it rained the harder I would sleep. Not anymore.

Along with all of this my brain won’t turn off. Part of me wonders if it’s stress and anxiety. Part of me wonders if it’s because I’m older. Part of me wonders if it’s because I run my own business and company and everything is on my shoulders. Part of me wonders if it’s genetic.

I come from a long line of non-– sleepers. So I come by being an insomniac naturally. We were all the night owls- And I used to be and wore that label with great pride. I can remember around 8 PM I would get my second wind, a burst of energy if you will, I could stay up until 1 AM or 2 AM with no problem. Now days if I’m not horizontal by 10 it’s all over for me.

But then sleep doesn’t always come.

I have tried everything- Exercise, reading, praying, warm milk, music, sex, hypnosis, meditation, and drugs.

I think my imagination is my worst enemy. In the good old days I could think about what I would do if I won a huge lottery. I could fantasize about walking into someone’s house and sitting down at the table and writing them a check- Or the places I would travel- Or the kind of house I would build-Or the charities I would help, etc… That in itself would lull me to sleep.

Again, not anymore. I know replace that ritual with worry and it’s so dumb. There’s so many things that I worry about but I have no control over that I can conceivably drive myself batshit.

The also weird thing that’s going on is that I am steadily losing weight- I’m doing it on purpose but I’m continuing to lose weight which is great- What’s weird about this is that I’m dreaming about things but I haven’t thought about in years that I’m realizing I satiated with the way I am at the time. For instance I’m almost down 50 pounds and I’m dreaming about stuff that happened to me when I was out this week many years ago.

Crazy times.

If any of you have insomnia what’s your home cure? How do you get your brain to turn off?