everyone on planet earth is sleeping except for me

I cannot remember a time in my life where i have consistently had a normal sleep schedule.  Sure, maybe a few days out of the week, i’ll sleep on time, and wake up at a reasonable hour, but it won’t last very long. As far back as i can remember, I have had issues sleeping, issues staying asleep, issues with taking too many naps, issues with waking up, and issues with falling sleep.

When I was little, in elementary school, my parents used to make sure i was in bed by 10:00 PM.  My sister, in the room next to me, would typically have shut her door by his time, and was talking on the phone, as she would continue to do, right up until she decided to go to bed.  I would sit in bed for an hour, maybe less, and then slowly sneak out and sit on a few steps of stares, intently listening to the news my parents were watching on the television, and slyly peak my head out to watch what they were doing - obviously grown-ups were doing something fun without me, and I was intent on figuring it out.  I would do this until they went to sleep, at which time, i would stay on the stares for another hour or two, trying to listen to my sister’s phone conversations.  They talked about boys the entire time.  Eventually finding my way back to bed, i would fall asleep until school time, if i was lucky. Even then, pulling all-nighters playing gameboy in my room was no foreign concept to me.  On the weekends, though, i used to be the one to wake up my parents - 5 am i used to just pop right out of bed.

The bad news is that i still have sleeping problems - i rarely fall asleep, and when i do, i usually cannot sleep for more than 5 hours, no matter how sleepy I am.  I am almost always sleep deprived, groggy, cranky, and wanting to cuddle up in my bed.  I have laid in my bed for 12 hours at a time trying to fall asleep to no avail.  The good news is that, recently, I have figured out the key to what puts me to sleep - the sound of people talking.  I used to listen to podcasts for awhile, just listening to their voices talking until i fell asleep, which worked well for awhile, but i then ran out of good casts to listen to.  Also recently, i had begun talking to this boy, who would call me at the wee hours of night, and talk to me until i fell asleep on the phone with him.  He did it knowingly, which was comforting.  I appreciate him for that, even though he stopped a few weeks back. But, my sister doesn’t live here anymore, and my parent’s don’t watch the news anymore, but i still pull all-nighters playing gameboy in my room.

I am still awake.