The problem with years of insomnia (among others) is that you are so used to waking at the wrong time and then lying there exhausted hoping to fall asleep that when you do actually sleep normal amounts, you’re never sure they’re normal amounts. You awaken and presume it is the too early hour, but then you’re not really tired. You finally do what you have taught yourself to avoid and either look at the clock or the window and lo! It’s actually morning.

This has been happening to me more and more lately. I have my sleepless nights, but then I have many normal ones. I feel like I should keep lying there because that’s what I usually have to do, but I don’t. It’s hard to train the body to do something different.

Luckily, I have dogs. They don’t want to wait to eat or go potty so I have to get up and feed them. The horses, too need to be fed. In fact sometimes it’s the knowing I’m going to have to get up and feed and care for everyone that makes going back to sleep more difficult when I do awaken at 2:30 or 4:30 or some other too early hour. Knowing I have an early rise time that is required always causes insomnia in me. I suppose the goal then is to find a way to not have to have the alarm. I’ll awaken on my own, like today, and feed the animals, and be awake because I slept enough the night before.

I wonder why slept gets a t. Why isn’t it sleeped? So many words seem to beg for a t, but they would be slang and not correct, but sleep gets it. I wonder why.