Learning (Not) To Sleep With The Enemy 

"You know you're in love when you can't fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams." - Dr. Seuss

I was not yet 18 and even at that my consent was not sought nor did I grant it. You won't be wrong to call it child abuse. She was vastly experienced and knew the tricks and called all the shots. I was rather too young to manage her presence in my life.

That relationship ravaged my young body and almost cost me my mind. Several visits to the doctors, sleep-inducing drugs, and even self-hypnosis exercises did not help.

It was a battle that took a heavy toll. I was not sleeping well, was not eating well, and had very low energy to sustain interest in anything. I was impatient most times, and my attention span was very short.

I felt trapped and desperately needed to get out of it. When that later happened, it appeared it was for good.

I changed so fast, you could say I flipped. The person she came for was no longer the person I was.

The butterfly had flown off leaving a spiky puparium behind. She couldn't deal with that. I woke up one morning and realized she was gone as she did not do the usual nightly visit. She snuck out. Gone for good.

I did not get her out of my mind and space by being stronger or exercising greater willpower. I got lucky.

A gift of two books from my father saved me. Those books (we will return to them soon) helped me to reveal the real lead to the relationship. They gave that eye-opening understanding that made her leave me, the way she came. 

For decades we had no contact and I would advise friends and family how to survive such strange and toxic relationships.

Now many years later she sneaks back in. And rather than get me scared or worried, I see that there's nothing to worry about for two main reasons.

First, I got over her the first time and I can get over her again.

Second, I am settled in. Marriage has also taught me to accept that the man's mind works differently from the woman's and that being married makes you two people, not one person.

Believing you are not two makes you take the other person for granted or makes you believe the other person completely understands your needs, your whims, and motivations, just like your Mother.

But your mother is your Mother. She gave your life and at a point her heart kept you going before your own heart developed and took over and even at that you depended on her for blood and were tied to her through the umbilical cord and when that was cut at birth you suckled at her breast for months.

Foolish of you to think the weaning from your mother wasn't the preparation to accept that the individuality of your personality and that of other persons. Anyway, that acceptance of the partnership of marriage made it easier and healthier to welcome back the old fathom lover of my younger days. My feet are quite firm on the ground now.

So I am able to look at her clear eyes. She came back more alluring, more engaging, and with lots of stories to tell from her wanderings. She still enjoys whispering in my ears and demanding attention while my wife and the household sleep on. And because I too have matured and learned some more survival tricks I manage her better than I did years ago.

In those heydays, I would be upset at her slipping into my bed less than two hours after I had gone to bed. I would play dead in the dark hoping she would go away. I would bemoan my being single thinking if I were married the rude awakening and intrusion would not happen as there would be no space in my bed for a third party. I didn't know that 25% of adults in the world struggle with her at one point or the other. The number I hear is now growing rapidly.

Now I lie still in the dark for about 10 minutes after she slips into the bed, then visit the bathroom, and if she's still there when I return and insists on a rendezvous we tiptoe out of the room without waking up my wife to my study where I put on the light. I drink some water or any uncaffeinated beverage and announce happily 'I am ready'.

Whatever stories appeal to us we read or write together and enjoy each other's company for as long as she feels up to it. She listens intently when I read aloud and leaves yawning as folks rouse and the quiet of the night begins to make way for sounds of human activities such as car noises and other muffled sounds that suggest a change of tempo. I then pack up after her and slip back into bed again and snooze off.

 Do I then have those guilt feelings? None at all and I think I am not in a hurry to end the romance. I now look forward to these night visits. They leave me thankful when they happen for reading without distraction or for the essays and poems I have to edit in the morning, written during those meetings. And when they don't happen I am immensely grateful too for the reinvigorating deep sleep that soothes my body and my mind. It's a win-win situation any which way. No matter what Leonard Cohen thought about this. Anyway, we come to his comments at the very end of this piece.

It's not like those nights decades ago that kept me tossing and turning on the bed and left me harassed and angry in the mornings. I was filled with petty anxieties and childish insecurities.

Dale Carnegie's book 'How To Stop Worrying and Start Living,' first published in 1948, and Tim LaHaye's 'How To Win Over Depression', first published in 1974, that my father gave me brought the key to lock the door I left open for her to breeze in. It was only one door and I knew the door. The bolts and hinges were loose because I felt a minor mishap that I was in no way responsible for seemed like the end of the world for me.

Those books brought back hope, rebuilt and revived my faith, and pointed me to the realization that the world belonged to The Creator and that I could be whole again if I trusted Him implicitly and saw the possibilities that opened up when I so did. They gave me the confidence to imagine the worst possible outcome in any event and how to deal with it, even though it may not even happen.

That made all the difference and was the turning point. There's a brought sharp change in the trajectory of my young mind. The load slipped off my shoulders. I literally got off the ground, showered, and declared myself a conqueror given His shield on my breast and the sword thrust into my hand.

That's how the romance with my night lover with the funky name of Insomnia -- which she prefers to Sleeplessness, a long name with a few letters repeated several times like those nightly whisperings -- ended then. The door was shut she would peep in to see me sound asleep on that bed and deaf to her whisperings.

Part of what I learned then was that I could find almost all the answers in books and that particular experience powered my push for self-discovery. Dad did not have to preach to me at all. He was not a man of so many words. His gift was the prescription I needed.

Over time, I would also learn to

- have a full and productive day, each day - and use up my energy for the day and go to bed satisfied I did my bit and leave it all at the bedroom door every night, 

- exercise the body, 

- avoid stimulants late in the day, 

- get plenty of fresh air, 

- meditate and breathe deeply, 

- live without guilts, 

- find laughter even in usual places, 

- watch what I eat knowing what is good for one may not be good for all, 

- trust my body and treat it with respect, 

- taking responsibility for my health myself, 

- not outsource my well-being to anybody, 

- see the good in others and treat their follies as unimportant, 

- have no time for the petty and small-minded, 

- know I am a short time guest on earth and be in awe of that, 

- love the gifts I find here in man, animal, plants, and nonliving things, 

- live a life of gratitude to the Giver of life, who made it all. 

I always, always look forward to the nights for the rest they come with and to the days for the tests they bring.

I sense the pandemic lockdown (with the attendant changes in habits and routines of a lifetime - working from home instead of the office, virtual in place of physical meetings, not going out for lunch or to the gym) and other shifts and concerns in the world I live in now shook up a few things and my long-gone lover ran back looking for me.

Oh, dear! I welcome her back happily though I never really missed her. I know will tire her out again but if she decides on a long stay she's most welcome.

We do the nights together and I do the days alone. That way I will be ready and happy for those nights she wants my company.

It's not like the years of yore. I am up to it and can handle the situation now. And there's something to show for it - good stuff to read and write in the quiet of long nights. I am not that young night worrier. I am now the Night Warrior!

"The last refuge of the insomniac is a sense of superiority to the sleeping world." - Leonard Cohen.

Haha, Mr. Cohen! How did you miss Dale Carnegie's memo?

"If you can't sleep, then get up and do something instead of lying there and worrying. It's the worry that gets you, not the loss of sleep." - Dale Carnegie

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