It is early, 0331. I’ve been awake maybe an hour and a half. I have had the experience when I wake up, lie in bed a bit and sleep doesn’t return, so I “try” harder to sleep. What is that about? If I can “will” sleep, that would make me exceptional as a human. I am not equipped with an ON/OFF switch. None of us are.

I prayed the Rosary. Serenity crept back in. And my eyelids are a little heavier. I did some channel-surfing, and decided I didn’t need to see the same footage of the Wehrmacht on the Russian Front in the summer of 1941 that I had seen many, many times before. So I switched to watching for trains. Maybe a freight will pass through before I go back to bed..

I always have a sense of failure when the wake-ups and insomnia assert themselves. It is as if sleeping is my job. Sleeping is one of my few regular daily activities, along with eating.