Impressions of Insomnia

Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night/wee hours of the morning and cannot get back to sleep.

It happened this morning.

And even though it is my favorite time to clean, what I usually do is catch up on computer work. Because any noise I make could wake up the kids. And we don't want that.

One time when I couldn't sleep I went to the gym. In case you are wondering, there's not much going on at the gym at 4 am. No competition for the equipment at all. It feels weird. You park alone. You have to ring a bell to be let in. You walk down an empty hallway and up stairs, pushing aside thoughts of how it is the perfect time for nefarious plots to unfold...

...this is why I don't watch scary movies or TV shows. Or creepy ads for either. And have you ever noticed that The Twilight Zone is on a lot in the middle of the night? Freaky.

Sometimes my insomnia bouts take hold and last for days. Or weeks. Not so much anymore, but it happened on my mission once right as I was training my first greenie. She was a real firecracker. I was sleep-deprived.

I'm pretty sure she thought I was a slacker because, among other things, I couldn't always shake myself awake after two or three hours of sleep. It's not like I slept 'til noon. Or even eight. But I remember one day I went into the kitchen for companionship study a half hour late to find that she'd already done it by herself (couldn't flip her schedule and do personal study first?) and that now she was going to shower and do her hair.

That was rough. She did have really nice hair.

The second greenie I had was polar opposite -- she wanted to sleep all the time. I let her nap while I made lunch, like my trainer had done for me. That first month I was so tired. Jet lag without recovery and a constant barrage of all things foreign wore me out.

At a dinner appointment my first week I fought to keep my eyes open and at some point became aware that I had briefly nodded off over my soup.

I don't think the family noticed, but I'm pretty sure my trainer did. She didn't say anything.

There was one member of the branch who picked up on my general stupor. To be fair, he spoke really fast and kind of slurred his words and was legitimately harder to understand than most people. I distinctly recall the sensation of having a three-second delay in my head. I would eventually catch the gist of what he said, but even that took a moment to register.

This man thought I was stupid. I remember him coming up to us one Sunday, ripping off a stream of supersonic Italian to my companion and then looking over at me and questioning my mental or language ability. Maybe both.

After my first month in Italy I was inner-city transferred. Then again my second month. And then again. So although I had lived in the same apartment for months, I was on my third area and companionship when transfers came around and I got the news I was being transferred once again. This time I was returning to my original area. Three areas and four companionships in five months equals a lot of... learning opportunities.

After bouncing around the city most of the summer, that first area where I had mostly just followed my trainer felt sort of familiar, but it was almost like being some place new.

Also new was the discovery of how much my Italian had improved.The ward member who doubted me still spoke really fast. Still mushed out his words. To my immense satisfaction, I could understand him and appropriately respond without the tape-delay. After so many changes, this was a good one.

Of course, he continued to speak to me like I was mentally slow for the entire month.

I like to think that if I had had a second chance with my firecracker greenie things would have been different. Not even counting the insomnia, my time with her came at one of the hardest points in my mission. Still, I could have handled things better. Or at least differently.

I still have regrets.

But they don't keep me up at night.