The worst thing is watching the clock, and seeing the hours, minutes and seconds as they slowly pass. You tell yourself not to look at the time, surely then it will go faster, and before you know it you will be asleep. But no. You give in and you look. And those minutes that felt like they were an hour long, were only actually 10.
You feel like you've tried everything.
Warm drink. Check.
Read a book. Check.
Lay in a dark room. Check.
Watch a film. Check.
You busy yourself with jobs, hoping it makes the time go past and that eventually your body will say "Hey! Woah there! Let's sleep. Time for shut down". But that doesn't happen.
You force yourself to sit down, and you tell yourself "have.a.rest" but your legs can't keep still. You fidget, you can't stop moving.
You even try sleeping at someone else's house. Away from your everyday life, hoping to reduce whatever it might be that is keeping you awake. But it follows you there.
You start to feel tired. You take that opportunity to lay down.
"Here we go", you think. "This is it. Sleep".
Your body starts to relax. You close your eyes.
"Ohhhhhh. That feels quite nice...."
Then....your eyes move quickly from side to side. And...they spring open.
I'm awake. I'm still awake.
I'm actually WIDE AWAKE now.
It's not just your head keeping you awake. Your racing mind. Those things that seems to go round and round and build up until you feel like your head is just going to explode.
It's your heart too.
A racing heart, that has been building up but all of a sudden, has increased.
And sometimes it races so much that you just don't think it will ever slow down.
You just prepare yourself to ride it out. You put yourself into this temporary routine and you have a plan.
You have a list of films to watch at silly o clock in the morning, when everyone else is asleep. They don't all have to include Tom Hanks either...although Captain Phillips and Saving Mr Banks will be high on that list...obviously.
You set up a Spotify list entitled 'Sam, Sia and Sheeran' to try and put you in a calming, relaxed state. Although you can't help but to try and sing along to some of them.
You know what it is. At least, you think you do.
And you know it will pass. At least, you think it will.
