Eyes Wide Open

I sat in doctor's office, a tight smile pulling my lips against my teeth. "I'm okay. I'm fine. It's really nothing, don't worry."

Pynchon held my arm and leaned in closer to me, whispering support in my ear. The doctor looked at me, kindly. She had nice shoes; she was funny. I liked her. I was embarrassed. We had come together, Pynchon and I, booking back to back appointments for nagging issues we just weren't motivated enough to attend to on our own. I'll go if you go.

Our family doctor was away and the resident, probably, I realized with surprise, younger than us, had ably diagnosed Pynchon's rash and commended him for coming in to treat it. As she explained the treatment and the likely cause, I patted his leg, commending him for his good sense in coming in, showing my support. All aglow from my role as caring wife who was vindicated in her nagging of 'go see the doctor, already, that's not getting better on its own!', I was not really prepared when she turned to me.

"Mimi? What are you here for?" She scrolled through my digital chart, narrating as she went. "Ah, I see you get a lot of sinus infections, oh! And you have a daugther. A toddler? Have you caught another cold, from her?"

"It's nothing ... I'm fine ... don't worry ... it's silly." I just couldn't, suddenly, couldn't say it: I can't cope. I can't sleep. My heart races and my breathing speeds up and I jerk myself away from rest. I lie in bed for hours. I'm so tired I snap at everyone, so tired I can't manage basic household tasks, let alone my very well-paid and increasingly neglected work. I sit in my office and stare at the screen, blankly, dreaming with my eyes open: of rest, an oblivion to wrap around me like a blanket.

I couldn't say: I'm a failure. I'm overwhelmed. It's not like I can't do it all: I can't even do half of what would be just enough. I couldn't say: I'm so desperate for sleep that sometimes I sob from exhaustion, or rage against myself, my own thoughts a poisonous swirl of vicious blame.

Pynchon held my arm, giving it a little squeeze. "It's okay," he said, "you can tell her."

I tried, and I got maybe three words out of my mouth before the tears came, my shoulders shaking. The weight of my failure threatened to crush me to dust. She leaned forward, said soothing things. "You need a vacation," she counseled, "you need to take naps."

I cried harder: vacations are for people who have accomplished their goals, put in their hours, bought groceries for their families, dusted at least once every two months. Naps only seem to ensure that sleep retreats ever further into the nighttime distance, leaving me quietly despairing in a quiet house, too groggy to do anything but worry. Vacations were for people who do not, rather than sheep, count major work deadlines marching across the summer calendar; naps are for people who are not adjusting three times over 9 weeks to jetlag from 3 hour, 6 hour, 3 hour time changes, internal clocks set somewhere in the blank vastness of the Pacific ocean, hungry at midnight, nauseated from sleeplessness at 9am.

We talked. I'm not depressed. I'm anxious and insomniac. I'm very busy and under a lot of pressure and I need my sleep and I simply can't get it. Can't get my brain to turn off even when I have one caffeinated beverage, before 10am, when my bed is used for nothing but rest and love, when the room is dark and quiet, when I'm in bed by 10pm. Can't stop the worry, the fret, the planning. Can't help but tot up the sleep debt in terms of lost productivity to come, a fear of bad moods and ill will. Can't help but blame my own neurotic personality for this problem: when I'm away for work, I sleep soundly and for 8 hours at a stretch. I'm much less comfortable, apparently, at home. How awful.

She wrote me two prescriptions. One, oddly, is for an antidepressant that has a drowsiness side effect. I'm to take this on evenings I feel I'm not going to get to sleep on my own. The other read: "2 days vacation. Naps as needed." This last she wrote for me in hopes of easing my guilt. I'm not sure it's working.

Since our visit to the doctor, I flew to Hawaii (6 hour time difference) and spent a week at a conference, capped off by a red-eye flight home. I have been in complete disarray since my return and parenthood means I can't go to bed at 6pm when I'm overcome by drowsiness, and can't even sleep past 6am, when I'm pulled out of sleep as if from the ocean floor. I can't think, and I'm too exhausted even to pass the time in housework.

I feel broken and ashamed. I feel powerless, and, more than anything, I feel so very, very tired. I just needed to tell someone, and everyone here? Is asleep.