at what point does a person with insomnia become an “insomniac”?

this is a question i’ve been thinking about a lot lately, as i enter my sixth month of sleep struggles. just the thought of that label brings a stricture of anxiety up into my chest.

insomnia makes you feel alien, other. freakish. that everyone else can take for granted something that comes so naturally to them, and can’t understand why it’s so difficult for you, feels almost psychologically traumatic as you lie awake in the wee hours of the morning, next to a peacefully slumbering partner.

you begin to doubt your own sanity, to play mind games with yourself.

iwon’tlookattheclockiwon’tlookattheclockiwon’tlookattheclock.

or:

the striped pillowcase helps me fall asleep.

or:

i’ll think of a time when i didn’t have any trouble falling asleep

or:

i’ll think about anything *but* trying to sleep

you lie there, trying to be motionless, straining to relax, hearing your heartbeat thud in your ears, willing your brain to tumble ever so gently off the edge of the cliff of consciousness. and you finally begin to get drowsy, you finally begin to drift ever closer towards the tipping point, and then… in your last moments, you become aware that “aha! i’m finally falling asleep!”…

…which of course, wakes you up.

and each night that sleep doesn’t come, the dread of bedtime multiplies. as you stumble groggily through the days in a foggy haze of semi-alertness, you can think of nothing but how tired you are, how zombie-like you feel, how blissful it would be to rest your head on a soft, cool pillow in a dark, quiet, peaceful room and fall into a deep well of refreshing sleep. yet the more tired you become, the higher the stakes get every evening – surely tonight you simply *have* to sleep. you simply can’t continue to *not* sleep. and every night, the crushing fear of not sleeping continues to build.

you try light pyjamas and warm baths and earplugs. you follow all the rules about going to bed at the same time, about not eating too late, or drinking caffeine. you try melatonin and valerian and magnesium and camomille. you try over the counter tablets and doctor prescribed drugs. you try combinations of all of the above. sometimes something will work for an evening. sometimes nothing works.

this cycle goes on and on, until every few weeks, the desperation and anxiety and pressure and overwhelming exhaustion get to the core of me, and somewhere between night and dawn, i crack.

hysteria sets in. i scream at the ceiling, i wail, i babble incoherently – i get carried away by the waves of frustration and bone-weariness until i am a blithering, blubbering mess of tears and snot quivering in the dark. jonno tries to comfort and console me but his very *existence* as a normal sleeper feels like a personal affront. all i can focus on is my intense craving for sweet, unconscious oblivion and mad thoughts of slamming my head into a wall run rampant through my brain.

i feel utterly, out-of-control insane.

until, in the ultimate cruel irony, these bouts usually knock me out. through swollen eyes and stuffed nose, i sleep the sleep of the dead.

and when after actually sleeping, i awake, a small bubble of hope rises with the sun. maybe i’ve broken the cycle, maybe i can somehow claw my way back towards some semblance of rested normalcy. maybe my bout of insomnia is over. maybe i’m not doomed to flail sleeplessly amongst the bedsheets forever.

because i can’t be an insomniac. i just can’t.

for more on the world of insomnia, i highly recommend the “all-nighters” series in the new york times. i must admit, however, i can’t even bring myself to read them all – they make me too anxious.

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last wednesday i got the call – grandpa is dying.

thursday, literally just 3 minutes before the deadline to close the UK skies due to volcanic ash, my flight home miraculously took off. we went straight from the airport to the nursing home.

his appearance was shocking – he was crumpled in on himself, gaunt skin and bones. but when we walked into the room, his eyes lit up. “he hasn’t been that alert in ages,” the nurse would later tell me.

“grandpa, i came all the way from england just to see you, and tell you i love you”

“i love you too.” it was difficult to decipher the words, but the intensity behind them was clear.

i kissed him, held his hands, massaged his feet, made small talk. i told him i loved him, over and over again.

he died on saturday, peacefully, painlessly, amongst family.

his mother was a settler of the american west, in a genuine covered wagon with a sod house. he lived through the great depression, served in the phillipines in the second world war, watched a man land on the moon, celebrated the turn of the millenium. he had three children, 8 grandchildren, 7 great-grandchildren, and a 53 year marriage.

he had a rich, long life, and died surrounded by loved ones. i’m not sure you could ask for anything else in this world… but we were the lucky ones, really.

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i love my cat dearly. adore him, really. his personality suits my temperment in every way. there’s only one thing wrong – he’s not a dog.

if you’re not a dog person, you won’t get it.

the other day i was running along listening to a new music podcast. a guy was trying to introduce a song by jason lytle – “the ghost of my old dog”, and explain why he liked it so much. he started out by saying, “i love dogs”, and as he was doing so, he began to get audibly choked up.

and i had to stop in my tracks – suddenly it became too difficult to breathe past the lump in my throat, too difficult to see through the swimming tears that filled my eyes.

but if you’re not a dog person, you won’t get it.

i’ve scarcely known much of life without a dog. when i was just three months my parents adopted a dog who became mine, my girl. i don’t know why she was mine – after all, there were 5 of us in the household. but she was. and when she passed away at a ripe old age, my family felt no shame in mourning her death openly, demonstratively. we took leave of school and work, because nothing else felt right but to honour her absence. at 14, it was the first time i’d ever experienced such an immediate loss.

we had other dogs, of course. lovely, warm family dogs.

but you don’t choose your dog – they choose you.

i would only fully realised this when my then-husband and i went to adopt a dog together. we went to a local no-kill shelter, full of a variety of older dogs and puppies, big and little, loud and quiet. we went around the cages once, made a pretense of playing with and examining other dogs – but i knew from the moment i saw her, that she was mine.

we went back to the assistant to ask if we could take her around the block for a walk. “which one?” she said.

“the black and white one with the long hair.”

“oh her – are you sure? she’s got a problem with her back leg.”

and indeed she did. turned out that she’d been born to a mother with distemper. she was the only pup from the litter to survive, but had nerve damage to her hindquarters – as a result, one back leg had atrophied badly, dangling a few inches above the ground like a dead limb.

but it was too late – she’d already won me over completely. i would later tell people there was something in her eyes that reminded me of my first dog. i don’t believe in reincarnation, but that same spirit came through to me so clearly when she looked at me, a quizzical, eager expression on her face which said, “what are you waiting for?”

what could we do? she came home with us in a taxi that day.

we were told suzie was a lab mix (apparently mamadog was a labrador) and she had floppy ears and a gloriously swishy tail. but it only took one trip to the local park for someone to say, “oh, what a beautiful border collie!” we went home and looked up border collies on the internet (this was before the “babe” movie) and it was a dead cert.

she was a border collie all right. in looks, in intelligence and in energy. she never let her bad leg get in the way of tearing around after other dogs in the park or herding our two cats around the tiny apartment. eventually, that activity rehabilitated her leg – we were no longer stopped on the street by strangers asking what kind of accident she’d been in, and her limp became barely noticable. i let myself forgot her original disability. i allowed myself to forget that she was born with problems.

i can still imagine her licking my face, and smell her feet that inexplicably smelled like cornchips. i still know exactly what the fur between her eyebrows felt like, the curve of her narrow chest. i can still see her play-bowing to engage the cats in a game of chase, and looking at me with that same quizzical, eager expression whenever i spoke.

suzie was my dog. she goofy – there was no other word for it really. she was goofy and quirky and full of exuberant personality. she always looked like she needed a good haircut with her untameable fur sticking out in all directions, and i loved that she always looked a just a little bit wild and scruffy. she was hilarious in her peculiarities – she would nibble buttons off of any clothing just to roll them around on the floor, she would do almost anything for raw vegetables, and she easily learned tricks that we never intentionally taught her. suzie was endlessly adaptable. she was perfectly behaved in the city – waiting patiently for us outside the neighbourhood shops, sociable with other dogs at the park, quiet in our small apartment. but she was equally happy in the suburbs – chasing and eating bees out of the back garden, riding seatbelted in the back of the car, well-behaved on visits to other’s houses. we took her everywhere with us, and suzie was that perfect mix of affectionate and independent – happy to be cuddled and played with, but never seeking it out excessively, and just as often content to curl up in the corner of the room, where she could see your reassuring presence, but not be underfoot.

relationships with people are complicated, fraught with potential disappointments, irritations, sadness and anger.

relationships with dogs are pure and true. dogs hold no grudges when you lose your temper, don’t sulk if you let them down. the love of a dog is the simplest, most essential form of unconditional love. whether you’ve had a bad day, whether you are sad, whether you are neglectful – they want nothing more from life but to love you. and to get up the next day and do it again. that kind of trust and adoration… rather than providing a meaningless ego boost, it actually causes you, just for that short while, to strip away all your petty human pretenses and facades. a dog’s love is humbling in its perfect, infinite way.

if you’re not a dog person, you won’t get it.

so when my husband and i split up, it went without saying that he got the two cats, and i got the dog. and as heartbreaking as it was to lose my cats, for i did love them tremendously… i simply don’t think i could have gotten through that period of my life without my dog. that goofy, sweet flying furball of boundless love.

shortly after the divorce, two things began to unfold simultaneously: my plans to move to london, and suzie’s declining health. she began to be stiff getting up the stairs, and the vet confirmed that she had some arthritis. getting around on polished wood floors became a little treacherous. a few months later, there was a scary episode where she wouldn’t put any weight on her back legs – a late night visit to the nearby pet hospital couldn’t resolve anything, and so the next day she was heavily sedated for xrays. the xrays came back clear (somehow she’d fallen and badly bruised her hip bone), but i will never forget when they wheeled her out unconscious on the gurney and my immediate thought was “that’s what she’ll look like when she’s dead.” my sister had to console me through floods of tears.

following her xrays, she had a bad reaction coming out of the anaesthesia. for the following 24 hours, she seemed utterly terrified and confused, whimpering and trembling whenever i was not physically touching or stroking her. i brought her up onto the bed with me, stroking her until i would doze off and her whimpering would wake me to pat her again. it was the only night she slept in the bed with me, and i spent it sleeplessly curled around her warm body, trying desperately to soothe her fears. i even called in sick the next day to be with her.

if you’re not a dog person, you won’t get it.

she recovered from that fall, but only got stiffer and less surefooted. meanwhile i was putting things in place for my move. i had a six month visa, but nothing more, and so my intention was to see if i could secure a longer term visa before bringing her all the way over to london. i didn’t want to put her through a transatlantic flight until i was sure i’d be bringing her for the long haul. it seemed like the most sensible thing at the time. i left her in the loving care of my mum and sister, who looked after her as well as i would have myself.

but when i returned, things were dramatically worse. she no longer had any strength in her hind legs and couldn’t walk unassisted – my mum had purchased an actual dog wheelchair and sling, and she did okay getting around in that. but she was a border collie, after all – she wanted to run. she wanted to fly as was in her nature, and those quizzical, eager eyes told me she couldn’t quite understand just why that was no longer possible. and i’d squandered those precious last six months of her life, through my own selfishness. something i’ll never forgive myself for.

i did it, of course – the single most painful experience of my life, was taking hers. for eight and a half years, she was my very best friend. i hadn’t realised there was something missing from my life before her, but i can’t put into words how much was missing without her.

she was mine – but i was so much hers. in joy, sorrow, sickness, and health – who knew when i picked her that i was entering into a marriage with a 47 pound, fluffy, black and white border collie? but i was, and i am a far better person for it. it is impossible to describe what that kind of love brings to your life.

i could not have asked for a better suzie. she made me laugh every single day we were together, and i swore she could read my mind sometimes. it was a love story from day one – the fact that she was a dog was simply a fluke of nature.

more than six years later, the very thought of her can make me choke up listening to a podcast, halt me in my tracks on the pavement.

but if you’re not a dog person, you won’t get it.

the ghost of my old dog – jason lytle

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in other sad news, i am rushing home to be with my failing grandfather. any good wishes you could spare will be appreciated.

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the other day i turned on the television to one of the “women’s” network cable channels that i never visit, only to stumble upon a show called “a baby story”. that’s right, a whole show dedicated to someone having a baby. i was intrigued to see what kind of plot twist there would be: perhaps this was a special messianic baby, or the birth was complicated in some way? but nope – this was just a garden variety birth, thoroughly sanitised, without even any bloody bits or drama. ordinary at best, dull at worst. and yet here was some middle-class lady with her legs in stirrups, eager to share her ordinary birth experience, presumably with some clamouring audience that had an overwhelming desire to watch almost nothing of note happen. but the gushing, glowing accolades about motherhood after the baby was born? well they were just unreal – you would have thought she was the first woman to ever successfully procreate.

it got me to thinking: when did motherhood get to be such a big deal?

now i’m not saying that it’s not individually a big deal for each mother. of course it is, and rightly so. i have a mother, we all came from mothers. mothers are important, we love mothers. i totally get that.

no, what i fail to understand lately, is the elevation of all things mother-related to near-sainthood. it’s become a cult of motherhood – one where all mothers are revered. all mothers are idolised, and mothers-to-be are feted. everything mother-related is viewed as being enveloped in a golden halo. motherhood itself is seen as the highest calling any woman can aspire to. mothers of multiples are practically worshipped (see: “Jon and Kate Plus 8″, the “Octomom” obsession, and anything and everything to do with the Duggars). society is obsessed with mothers. there are faddish “yummy-mummies”, and mommy blogs, and doom-laden warnings about postponing motherhood, and television shows, and acronyms for “SAHM” or “WOTH” mothers, and “soccer moms”, and “mommy wars”, and “helicopter moms”, yadda yadda yadda.

mothers sacrifice, mothers are wellspings of giving and devotion, mothers toil uncomplainingly and unendingly. giving birth is a miracle, nourishing a new human inside and outside one’s body is the ultimate act of creation and caregiving. raising a child is the most rewarding thing you will ever do.

all of which is true… but so what? 99% of all women will become a mother – why all the media hype?

it didn’t used to be this way. when i grew up in the 70s, mothers were just… mothers. (ooops, did i just say that?)

and yet we’ve fetishised it of late. and i would argue, we’ve done so to the detriment of both mothers *and* fathers alike.

(yeah, fathers. remember them?)

these days the cult of motherhood is so all pervasive, so all consuming, so all-idealised that there is overwhelming pressure on women to be something they can never be: the perfect mother. i know several smart, strong, capable women who’ve been reduced to a quivering mess because they fear “doing it wrong”. because attachment parenting doesn’t work for them. because they didn’t breastfeed long enough. because they breastfed too long. because they didn’t breastfeed at all. because they didn’t get their “pre-baby” bodies back as quickly as the next person. because they don’t have the wherewithall to enroll their child in private school. because they (*gasp*) can afford to stay at home, but don’t want to, and feel guilty about it. because they *do* want to stay at home, but can’t afford to, and feel guilty about it. because they let their child watch television. because they let their child eat sugar. because they got their kids vaccinated. because they didn’t. because they only have one child and their kid will be lonely. because they have a few kids and they don’t all get individual attention. because they spend too much time on the internet. because their kid doesn’t hit developmental milestones fast enough. because they don’t eat organic. because they don’t cook enough. because they buy their kid’s halloween costume at a store instead of hand-sewing one. yadda yadda yadda.

because they are under the weight of a society’s gaze that is all-idealising, all-critiquing, all-consuming, all-motherhood-all-the-time. and they are bound to disappoint. society has raised the bar so high, painted the halo with such a wide brush, that no one can possibly wear it.

and remember the fathers? in a society that is all-motherhood-all-the-time, they are relegated to the sidelines as ostracised bit players. we exhort men to be more equal, involved partners in parenting – but only mothers get the recognition.

and with a culture that is so skewed towards mothers, is that a healthy message to pass on to the children in this equation?

it seems to me that we have turned motherhood itself into just another obsessive pursuit of the unobtainable female ideal – just as damaging as any photoshopped model in a magazine. instead of viewing the “normal” and “ordinary” as worthy of quiet respect and appreciation in their own right, we obsess over and venerate a hyper-glossy and warped version of the female form, until women everywhere are killing themselves to conform.

and in doing so, we miss out on recognising the work of everyday mothers, doing everyday mothering. not extraordinary, perfect mothers who only exist in the careful editing of reality television shows. not sainted, virgin mothers who birth the son of god. just everyday mothers – who do it all without the limelight and veneration…

…and sometimes with a little help from a father.

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the other day was what i like to call my 7 year “move-iversary”. it’s been seven years since i set foot on this damp and crowded island, intending to make a new life for myself. seven years is a long time, and while i still occassionally marvel at the equal amounts of courage and naivete i had when i first arrived, the fact is that for better or for worse, this city has been “home” now for a while.

i suppose the strangest bit is that i truly never intended to be here this long – because while i like london, i have never loved it. oh, i may have my random days of infatuation (usually coinciding with the rarity of a warm, sunny weekend), when i can hardly believe that i live in a city with so much history, but overall, london is just not that great a fit for me. too bound in tradition, too restrictive, too far from anything resembling nature, too crowded. as much as i’ve gotten used to it, i still can’t believe that in a city of 8 million people, the shops all close at 6pm, the tube closes at 12:30, and you can’t buy a bottle of shampoo over 250 ml (8oz).

but i have gotten used to it. it’s the norm, now, for me to use anglicised spellings, metric measurements, and telephone numbers that can have anywhere from 9-11 digits. i’ve stopped puzzling over these things (which still, to a large extent, baffle me) and simply internalised them. this is home, the not-so-new normal.

and it has become immensely easier over the years to be an american, here in blighty. my first flat had no internet (something which i promptly rectified), no cable, and a fridge the size you’d use to store beer in a frathouse living room. everything was small, different, and confusing. it was alien, and alienating – i found myself clinging to “friends” reruns and hiding in my room a lot.

but it was also the kind of cultural immersion of the kind you’d be hard pressed to experience nowadays. things, as they say, have changed. these days there are actual coffeemakers you can purchase in the shop (instead of making do with a one-cup caffetiere/french press). there are more crappy american television shows than you can shake a stick at. there are actual lactose-free products in the dairy aisle (seven years ago, the phrase “lactose intolerant” was completetly unheard of, and trying to explain that you couldn’t eat dairy in a country which reveres milk and cheese was like trying to explain monogamy to tiger woods.) there is skype and there are free long-distance minutes handed out like candy by the mobile companies. there is (loathe as i am to admit it) facebook – allowing me to reconnect with people i thought i’d lost, and helping us to stay interwoven in each other’s lives. there is (holy of holies!) live-streaming baseball, and international amazon.com shipping. being an expat today is completely different – the boundaries between europe and america are becoming more blurred every day.

don’t get me wrong: there is still lots of stuff i miss. american-sized jeans, flavoured coffees, good antiperspirants, and bras are all things i still stock up on when i am back in the states visiting. (the bra thing? don’t ask. i have never found a good-fitting bra here, ever.)

but more importantly, there are things which cannot be imported. spending time with my failing grandfather. being present for the births of my nephew and niece. hot summers by the ocean, going for hikes in the mountains, the freedom of driving speeding down a wide, empty highway. so many of the loves that make my heart sing are so far away.

and to complicate matters, there are freedoms i enjoy here that i would never want to go back to living without. universal healthcare, ample holiday allowances, ease of travel, good beer, eu privileges and protections. these are the fully british rights that i have incorporated as part of my worldview, that have shaped my priorities and politics, for future and forevermore.

i have lived in this strange place of limbo for seven years now – one foot in each world, fully a part of neither, being at “home” in a place i still don’t understand and don’t love, being away from “home” where my family lives but i no longer fit in.

yes, it has gotten easier, thanks largely to technology and the creep of globalisation. (evil globalisation – the boon to the expat. who knew?) but even after seven years, it’s still not easy. i don’t imagine it ever will be – expatica complicates and changes your life in a way that no one can predict. it remains difficult for my family, (and often myself) to understand why i electively live so far away from some of the things that matter most to me in the world. it’s a compulsion that has taken me down a path that i couldn’t reverse if i tried. or wanted to.

like me, this post is a bit of a mish-mash that doesn’t know where it’s going. all i know is that being an expat has long since gone from being a choice about *where* i live, to a choice about *how* i live. from a piece of nomenclature, to a fundamental piece of my identity. the world will change, and my place of residence will change, but that bit of me that has irrevocably changed, will never change.

as long as seven years may seem when i reflect back, looking forward, i know it is only just the beginning.

stranded – sambassadeur

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sorry for the silence of late. between my marathon training and crazy workdays and continued insomnia, i feel as though my days are all blending into an unending haze of work/run/eat/lie awake all night.

i’ve had posts to write, but no time or energy to spare.

but in the meantime, i leave you with this:

the lightning storm and downpour of earlier today breaks, the clouds clear, and i head out for a run. the brisk air cools my face and neck as i turn towards the common. i pass the dripping forsythia newly burst in bloom, the cloying scent undercut by the fresh undertones of rain. there is new budding greenery suddenly everywhere, crowding in from all sides, bright against the golden afternoon dappled amber rays and the washed blue sky. this song is playing and the soles of my shoes seem to be filled with helium, rising, rising, rising of their own accord. my heart and lungs like to burst, my legs burn with speed, and yet i can’t slow down. it is impossible for me to not run faster and faster, the joy of presence in my body bubbling up at the back of my throat, exploding into my brain. it’s spring and i am more alive than i have felt in months and every cell in my being tingles with the overwhelming effervescence of pure effusive adrenaline.

Now we’re all allowed to breathe
Walls dissolve
With the hunger and the greed
Move your body
You’ve got all you need
And your arms in the air stir a sea of stars
And oh here it comes and it’s not so far

All light beings
Come on now make haste
Clap your hands
If you think you’re in the right place
Thunder all surrounding
Aw feel it quake with the joy resounding
Palm to the palm you can feel it pounding
Never give it up you can feel it mounting
Oh its gonna drop gonna fill your cup and
Oh its gonna drop gonna fill your cup

the age of miracles

indeed.

golden age – tv on the radio

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