04:00

It's not often that I get insomnia. But when I do it's a spiral of out of control thoughts and wonderings.

Tonight I wondered what the weather is going to be like and what my day will look like and what I should wear and bring with me to be prepared for the day or how I should spend my hour long gap between my gym time and my first or three coffee friend dates.

I also think about how I've just rearranged my room and I am not happy with the new layout and the logistics of changing it back or having it another way. I wonder if I should take some small risks with my finances like a new camera, or a small trip, or a desk to complete my living space, or just do something exciting or be smart and wait until I find a job. I play out every hypothetical situation between the two extremes.

And I think about where I can be looking for work and what I want to do for work. I know what I don't want to do but I don't have a clear picture of what I do want. The longer this goes on, I become a little more worried about my situation. More on that later.

I don't know why I'm not sleeping or why these things are on my mind because I usually wing it through the day and am so laid back that these things don't normally matter to me. So why do they matter on this random Friday morning at 2:00 am?

Every little noise is keeping me awake and thinking. Just when I start to drift a car drives by or the heater starts clicking. Normally I sleep through everything. Even earthquakes.So why do these little noises seem so loud tonight?

I had trouble falling asleep to start with. My sister slept over so when I realized that I couldn't sleep, I pulled out my lavender infused eye mask and ear plugs from my days of sleeping next to a big, snoring man. I finally fell asleep but after a while my alarm went off and I had to get up and get ready for the gym. Or so I thought... it turned out that it was just a dream!

I didn't want to look at my phone and be awakened more by the bright light and in my mind, it was probably 4:00 am. I tried to go back to sleep but starting thinking about the day ahead and all of the above mentioned stuff. Then it occurred to me, if it is 4:00 am now and I don't get back to sleep before I have to actually wake up at 6:30, I will have slept for 4 hours and the gym is going to suck and I'm going to be so out of if for my coffee dates... I gave in and I looked at my phone and saw it was only 2:00 am! Which meant that I had only slept for 2 hours and then I realized that if I can get back to sleep, I can get another 4 hours in before my alarm! Two hours later and I'm on the couch so as not to disturb my sister, listening to the fridge run and writing a blog post.

Often times I have already learned the lesson and I am passing it on through my blog. But this time, I want to learn from you!

Does any of this sound familiar to you? How often do you have nights like this? What do you do to get back to sleep when you wake in the night? How do you get through your day after a night like this?