I guess they call it insomnia...

I’ve been having trouble sleeping the last week or so. I’m tired early in the evening, but I can’t seem to actually get to sleep and, even when I do manage to get there, I wake up much earlier than I should. At first, I thought it was just a biorhythm adjustment gone awry (this often happens when my routines change), but it’s gone on for longer than it should, and now my sleep is giving me strange dreams.

I don’t dream very often. Well, that’s not quite true. Rather, I don’t often have dreams I remember when I wake. Usually, I rouse from sleep, say, “Huh. Nice dream, that,” and it’s gone from my head by the time I lift it up from the pillow. There have been some notable exceptions to this, most famously the dream in which SiSi’s name came to me, but, generally, I don’t give my dreams much attention as they fade into the ether.

If I have a dream that echoes strongly enough for me to remember after I get up, I have learned to recognize it as something I’m supposed to pay attention to. If I have the same dream (or a variation on it) several days in a row, I know to take it as a sign from the universe that I’m not doing something I should be. I’ve been having such dreams for a couple of days.

The last time I had dreams like this with the same sleep issues, it was because I was avoiding something I was supposed to be taking care of. On a conscious level, I may have tried to justify why I was avoiding it, but my subconscious very clearly did not accept the excuses and sent the same dream to me several nights in a row until I said, “All right! All right!” and I dealt with the problem. I think the same thing is going on now, but I’m not entirely sure which of the myriad things I have going on the universe is telling me to work on.

The women of my house are leaving for Nana’s on Friday to spend the long weekend. I often use these “free” weekends to take care of stuff that requires constant focused attention that simply can’t be done when I have to be on duty as the papa. I’ve been creating a list of things to do, but I think I’m going to clear my schedule until I can pin down the thing that isn’t on it, that my subconscious is telling me needs to be there.

I’ll let you know once I figure it out. In the meantime, I have to get ready for school.