Insomnia

I woke up for the day at 1am. During the few moments before my compassion dissolved into a dull panic, I felt sorry for anyone who had ever told me that they had insomnia. I felt sorry for my sister and for my old boss. And then, I felt solely and thoroughly sorry for me. I got out of bed. I wondered why I was dreaming about finished the roll of wood at the back of my head, why it was hard to roll that wood, why my neck was made of wood, and why it had been easier to roll my wood the last time, and then I was out. I was here. In this torn-up heatless house. I went upstairs and looked up old emails.
I sent emails. Note to self: do not do this again.
I started to put things away. Lots of things. But only for a few moments. I found an old essay I'd written. I had thought that the essay was lost to me - but here it was, part of a collection, starting on page 78. It was about death. How people died. How they prepared to die, and how the preparing and the dying didn't line up the way they were supposed to. Things are not meant to be planned, I suppose.
Anyway, I read the essay and tried to glean something from it - a message about how my writing really did matter, or how it was good, because I won an award for this essay, or some version of it. And I discounted that award, and I thought it didn't matter, because I got the award for spilling my guts out, for coining the phrase that cancer moved like a blind assassin through my family (beFore Margaret Atwood) but I was supposed to be getting points for legal analysis and there were no points for that.
I wrote my property exam in metre. That should not have worked.
Last night, I tried to meditate. I tried to calm my body. But I thought: I'm going to talk to that General contractor. I'm going to give him a piece of my mind. I am going to tell him that I've hit the wall. I'm going to tell him that he has to FINISH something - anything. SOMETHING has to get DONE.
He walked in today and said that the electrician was unavailable afterall. He'll come some other time. He'll finish another time.

But I never got to sleep. Not until 6am, anyway. And today, that felt like never.

Somebody, some where, slept. Not me.