My entire life, I have been a night owl. (It's a little ironic that I am writing this at 5 am because I can't sleep.) My mom tells stories of that when I was a baby and she would put me to bed, no matter what she did, I would always outlast her.
That evolved into endless nights staring at sesame street wallpaper making up stories to go along with the characters as a toddler. I don't ever remember watching sesame street except when we stayed home from school. However, the wallpaper in my room was white and it had rows of doors or houses with rows of the sesame characters in between. So, I would make up stories and imagine the different characters going to the different houses for tea, movies, games... you name it, I acted it out in my mind.
After that, came school where I found an excuse for my insomnia. My problem has never been sleeping. Once I fall asleep, I am out. I mean seriously, I have forgotten to set an alarm and slept for 20 hours once. My problem is getting tired enough or having my brain slow down enough to let me fall asleep.
Just recently, a new chapter has been added to this insomnia, in the past month or so... I fall asleep and don't sleep very well or very long. Hence, the need for drastic measures. I found an app called sleep maker. It plays the noise of crickets chirping near a stream. I have never slept better in my life. I just focus on the sounds which inevitably puts my mind on the same line of thoughts each night: sleeping out under the stars.
This is very similar to the sound my phone makes...
To get the full ambiance necessary for this post to be good,
you should start playing this as you finish reading.
The first place this takes me is to my very first, that I can remember, camping trip. My dad and brothers would go on a yearly fishing trip to Utah. I was never allowed to go, until this year (I think I was 7). I was so excited to be part of the fishing group! I was on cloud 9 the whole time. That is until I got sicker than a dog. I woke up in the middle of the night (our first night at camp) throwing up and had diarrhea. I was miserable. No toilet, no sink, no mom to give me a cup of sprite and a wet wash cloth on my head. I don't remember much more about that night but thankfully early in the morning my dad had us all packed up and we checked into a motel so I could be sick there.
What a good dad. But what a bad memory to go to sleep to, so I continue to rack my brian for another experience to go to sleep with.
The only one I can come up with is when my pals and I looked up in the sky at the stars and tried to decide what they are made of. One friend thought that they were fireflies stuck up in big bluish black thing. Another friend thought that they were balls of gas burning billions of miles away. Best of all, one friend thought that the great kings of the past are up there watching over us, or rather a bunch of royal dead guys are watching us.
Yes, at night with crickets in the back ground, I interject myself into scenes of The Lion King. There is something wrong with me. But, I have been sleeping like a baby the last couple weeks. So who could ask for more?
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