Insomnia

Have you ever had trouble sleeping? The house is quiet, everyone else is asleep, and you're just lying there staring into the dark, thinking about everything you have to do for the next ten years and everything that's ever gone wrong in your life and everything you've ever lost and where it might be and everyone who's ever made you mad and how stupid they are... And so on. Have you? And while you're lying there, have you ever started listening to the person next to you? You hear their even, heavy breathing that borders on snoring and the squeaking of the springs under them as they roll over. Have you? And while you listen, has it ever just started to tick you off? You start thinking about how unfair it is that they can fall asleep in five minutes, no matter where they are or what's going on, even though you take an hour to fall asleep even on a good night. You think about how you're the one that has to get up multiple times in the night to feed your baby while they get to keep snoring soundly and so you need to get all the sleep you can in between because you also have to get up early for work, and yet THEY'RE the one who actually get all of that sleep. Have you? And as you get angrier and angrier at the injustice of it all, have you ever thought that if you can't sleep, they don't deserve to either? And then, have you ever suddenly just kicked them in the leg as hard as you can so they can wake up and see how miserable you are and share some of that misery by being awake, too? Have you? And once they're awake, have you ever suddenly realized what you've done and how unreasonable you're being and felt really bad about it? You realize you're really just mad at your own body and you're taking it out on them when they haven't actually done anything wrong. Have you? And have you ever felt so bad and embarrassed about it that you try to pretend that isn't what just happened? Maybe you pretend you had one of those uncontrollable almost asleep full body spasms and it got out of control. Or perhaps you try to convince them that you didn't touch them at all and they must have dreamed it. Have you? And as they fell back asleep almost immediately and you lay there, still not even close to drifting off, have you suddenly remembered how insufferable they are and wished you'd kicked them as hard as they really deserved? Have you ever done that? Have you? Yeah, me neither...

Life Lesson Learned: He's probably not really trying to sound smug while he snores... Probably.