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April 21, 2024
by Luisa Ruiz
As I write these lines, most people are peacefully asleep and dreaming. It is 3:28am, and I am awake not because I suffer from insomnia or because I have go to work at this hour. I got out of bed because, after fighting for two hours, I was defeated... by a mosquito.
Hearing its buzzing near my ear made me desperate. I am usually a calm person, but sounds like the whirring of a mosquito or the cry of a baby drive me up a wall.
Normally, on such occassions, confronted with one or more mosquitoes, I am up with the light on and ready for a fight. A t-shirt in hand is my weapon of choice to vanquish the enemy. I remember long, valiant fights, with multiple foes, when my victory prize was a restful sleep.
Tonight, I could not apply this technique because I am sharing a room with a friend and I don't want to wake her. So I chose to quietly get up and go into another room. Perhaps the writing of this episode will be therapeutic, allowing me to vent a little of the frustration of not having slept as long as I would have liked.
Earlier, lying there in the dark, trying to slap the mosquito to death as I heard it approaching my ear, I thought of people who have difficulty sleeping. It's a more common problem than I care to imagine. Many people struggle to sleep and take pharmaceutical pills or alternatives like marijuana edibles to fall asleep. Patterns vary. Some people have difficulty falling asleep. Others have difficulty staying asleep.
Luckily, I don't suffer from the negative consequences of lack of sleep: low energy, sleepiness, irritatability, lack of focus... I can count the number of times that I have gone to bed and not fallen asleep immediately on two hands. I'm fortunate: I put my head on the pillow and go to the dream world. Those times, as in other difficult moments I like to write. I will write a poem to my tiny conqueror:
