SLEEPLESS NIGHTS

Who of us has not suffered that seemingly endless night...a night of racing thoughts, troubled visions, anxiety producing apprehension about money, our children, our love life, or lack there of? How many of us have been lonely...having no one to call in the dead of night when the ghosts of the psyche choose to visit...uninvited? That was what my favorite teacher would have called a run on sentence...(he exists on my shoulder and whispers in my ear)...but this time he'll have to let it go. Basil Beckett Burwell, forgive me this lapse.But these are legitimate questions, and I am sure the answer it not one...not one of you have not experienced the worry in the darkness at least once.

So we share this plague of watching the hours pass with no respite...no restorative hours in the arms of Morpheus. He has deserted us...he has other pursuits. Some of us are born worriers and are waterboarded with insomnia all our lives. Others sleep well...and to them I say "live and be well,"... but even they have experienced at least one sleepless, troubled night.

In the night we are alone, in the dark with our thoughts...some of which we've staved off during the daylight hours. But in the night the dam bursts and our minds are flooded with the sludge of our secrets, petty jealousies and very real troubles and worries.

No one really knows what sleep is...we only know that we need it. New research tells us it's even more important than we thought...people who sleep well...get their solid eight hours...increase their longevity.

There have been many famous insomniacs throughout history.We can begin with Marilyn Monroe and Vincent Van Gogh...the were talented...that is indisputable, but they met decidedly tragic ends. Then there was Benjamin Franklin. He was charming, brilliant, witty and accomplished and lived a rather long life. But he used his time well. Most of us simply lie in bed and suffer. Franklin got up and functioned, thinking, inventing, being generally gifted. (I'm afraid if I get up I'll never get back to sleep...perhaps that's a poor decision.) Then there was Marcel Proust, though he expired at a young age, no one can dispute his extraordinary achievement. I've read "Remembrance...." twice and it never fails to dazzle me and think that I should give up writing because I'll never achieve that level of talent....I can't even come close.

Then there was Napoleon and Thomas Edison. Say what you will of them, Napoleon may have been exiled to Elba,but prior to that he was a brilliant conquerer. And what can be said of Edison...his many brilliant ideas are still with us. That's quite a track record.

For the rest of us who are visited in the night with troubles...yet again, we are but human and flawed and we will worry, and torture ourselves needlessly. All of us....everyone. So be it,,,