I have a lot of issues with sleep, in that I just don't do it very well. I know it's not a difficult concept, but it's one that my mind fights me on almost every time I attempt it.

It was a gradual process, but at some point a few years ago, my brain just stopped shutting down. It begin with restlessness... I would lie there for hours before I would finally drift off to sleep. It then progressed into wacked out dreams - not necessarily nightmares (in that they would be frightening or upsetting), but like David Lynch wacked out. I would find myself in the middle of the woods and I would be holding somebody's decapitated head, and I would be like, "Huh. That's a head." Or, I would be riding around in a car with my mom, and I can totally tell that she's trying to stall for time, because we're on the way to (some place) for me to be put to sleep. And, I was sad and all, but I knew it was inevitable, so I was like, lets just get ON with it. See? Kind of wacked.

Meds helped to an extent.... my doctor gave me a prescription for ambien, and that shit was awesome! But after a few weeks of taking it, it stopped being effective. So, he would increase my dose. When that stopped working I would try other home remedies. I would alternate between taking the ambien and over-the-counter sleep aids, hoping that less frequent use would make the ambien work better. Of course that soon stopped working too.

I blamed it on stress at work, constant travel, never having a consistent lifestyle. However, I started getting more and more desperate for sleep. It was beginning to affect my health... I lost about 20 pounds and I started to look like walking death.

It finally came to a head in February 2000. I was at a week-long convention in San Francisco, and the work was non-stop. I would have breakfast meetings early in the morning, work the booth from 8 to 5 (which is exhausting all in itself) and then have customer dinners at night. No matter HOW exhausted I was though, I just Couldn't. Fall. Asleep. Couldn't do it. It was like a freight train was in my head. The last night of the meeting, I lay on my bed and cried until morning.

Well, I'm sure it doesn't take a genius to read this and know that there was a lot more going on there than just sleep issues, and someone at the meeting took pity on me and gave me the number of a great doctor to see. I eventually got on a regimen of therapy (physical & mental) and medications, and slowly but surely got back to a (more) normal sleeping pattern. Except for the dreams - the one with my mom just happened last week.

The point of this story is that I don't usually fall into a deep enough sleep that I would think that a dream is real. Sometimes I even know it's a dream, even when I'm dreaming it. So when I woke up this morning to the sound of Georgie crying, I KNEW it was her.

She has several, very distinctive ways of communicating. There's the "don't-you-even-think-about-drinking-that-milk-before-I-get-a-bowl" cry, the "I-hear-Mommy-at-the-door" cry, and the ever so popular "I'm-about-to-throw-up-another-hairball" cry. The cry I heard this morning was different. It was low, gutteral and tortured. I've heard her make it when she thought that I had already left on a trip, but I had forgotten something and came back up without her knowing. I heard her make it when she got so dehydrated that I thought she was going to die, and she had to be put on IV fluids. She hasn't cried like this often, but enough for me to recognize it, and it was her.

Sam was sleeping next to me, and when I woke up, he was looking around the room with his ears backed. I know he heard it too. I swear, it sounded like she was in the room with me. I could still hear it as I ran out my bedroom door, so I didn't even question it. It was her, simple as that. I ran outside and to the side of the house by my bedroom, but she wasn't there. I called for her for about ten minutes, but there was no sign that she (or any other cat) had ever even been there.

I guess I'm writing this down because it's driving me absolutely crazy. It's like a song that gets stuck in your head, except that this time it's her cries I hear. Was I dreaming? Was it some other cat? Did Sam get upset because he could tell I was upset? Who the hell knows. All I do know is that if it was her, she's not a happy girl. And if it wasn't her, it's a very uncomfortable feeling to think that I imagined this.

Am I losing it?

feeling... exhausted
about to watch...Buffy, Gilmore Girls,& American Idol,somehow at the same time
miss something?
goodbye my friend - 2005-04-29
out of the loop - 2005-04-09
a quest for clarity - part 1 - 2004-08-30
no plan for a sequel - 2004-08-27
slacker of the month - 2004-08-26