Waiting to sleep

I've been waking hourly all night almost every night since a week or two after Sandy died. No wonder I'm exhausted.

I've always been a light sleeper, with a habit of insomnia. Typically, I've had trouble falling asleep in the first place, and then if I wake during the night, it was common for it to take me an hour to get back to sleep.

This is different. Now, I put off turning out the light until midnight or 1:00 a.m., but then sometimes fall asleep right away and sometimes lie awake a while. Then I wake every hour or so, each time turning to the clock expecting to find that it's morning—and I fall asleep again almost immediately.

Sandy and Belly, sleeping in 2006

I haven't used an alarm clock in years. I had a strong internal sense of time and could trust myself to wake up when I want to. When she was working, Sandy would tell me what time she wanted to be up in the morning and then set an alarm clock for five minutes later, as a back-up. It was very rare that the alarm went off before I nudged her awake.

Now, though, time is skewed for me. I wake at 3 a.m. thinking it's time to rise. I no longer instinctively know what time it is when I'm in the garden or running errands. I rarely know what day of the week it is, or even what month it is. I can always tell you how many days or weeks it's been since Sandy died, but I can't fathom how that number is accurate. My sense of time apparently stopped (or paused? will it come back?) at 1:20 a.m. on July 19. Even my pocket watches have stopped working since Sandy died, and so have the ones she used. I am living outside of time, waiting for her to return.

In fact, I suspect I'm waking every hour because I'm waiting for Sandy to come to bed. Every now and then she'd stay at work finishing up some project or other until about 4 a.m. Though I'd attempt sleep, I'd wake frequently, aware that she wasn't yet home.

If only she'd come home, I think I'd get a good night's sleep.