Insomnia blues

Since Saturday night, I haven’t had a good night’s sleep. My mind is alert way after midnight and I wish I could block out the overactive brain activity. Before I know it, it’s dawn and Mr. D’s alarm goes off. Unable to sleep, I get up and potter around. After some brekkie, I sink into the futon for a half-hour catnap.

…1130am rolls around and I wake up in a jolt — only one hour more to leaving the house! I haven’t done any Japanese study and my head feels heavy like I’ve taken one too many cold tablets. I’ve a confession: I’ve been taking Valerian Root pills when I get desperate for some shuteye. The problem is this sleepless remedy takes two to three hours to kick in so by the time I’m going crazy in bed it’s 2am.

Perhaps it’s too much caffeine or I’m suffering a delayed reaction to relocation shock. When I first arrived, I loved the chilly nights because they made snuggling up so much more cosy. Maybe I wasn’t used to a lot of my surroundings and I was exhausted by late afternoon — but i would sink into this blissful, deep sleep and by morning I'd be raring to go.

Even after running 6-7km, I still can’t sleep. I used to switch off in a snap. Today I decided to undo several things: I won’t injest any caffeine (I caved in at 3pm and gulped a small iced tea. Cheers to resisting a big bottle of milky latte); I won’t run this evening because this shoots up energy levels; I won’t drink any alcohol; I won’t eat any ice-cream or chocolate before bed to prevent any kind of sugar rush.

Maybe it’s relationship blues. Everything is okay now but had a rocky patch with the kangaroo. Lots of people tell me reuniting after a long bout of long distance will have teething problems.

Do you ever try to make emotional wish lists? I hope I will sleep well, return to my cheerful, sane self and stop mauling my kangaroo.

Gambatei (Trying my best).