Absence Seizure

The nights are restless, dark and deep. I've been sharing my bed with a strange bedfellow, Insomnia, who kicks and snores through the night, and waits till I've just dozed off to shake me and ask, "Are you asleep?" Not any more...

Insomnia creeps into strange places: when I do sleep, I keep having a recurring dream that I've just woken from a seizure—so in my dream, I wake to the memory of having lost my memory. Huh?

Reliably, I get up around 5am, more like sleep-walking than actual waking. I get up not because I'm awake, but because I've been forcibly ejected from my sleep. If I turn on a light, my eyes are slow to adjust, like a mole's, so I wander the apartment in the dark, aimlessly, not even consciously, taking a mindless inventory of things—assessing that the pieces of my life, so carefully arranged during my waking hours, are all still in place, and haven't been stolen from me by a thief in the night, stolen from me like my peace of mind was stolen, that sense of safe optimism, which was taken not all at once but a few coins at a time, month after month; and I realize now, it is not our peace of mind that we should lock up in the fireproof safe—because peace of mind needs air and sunshine—but rather, the worries that should be kept locked up and out of sight: they are the thieves; and it is the thieves, not the treasures, that should be locked away.