Six-thirty a.m., every morning. I am out of bed. No matter what time I laid myself down to sleep and took seven deep breaths and waited for sweet Morpheus to rock me into dreamland. But too many nights, Morpheus punks out on me, so do the famed sheep. I ruminate about the trip that was promised but never taken. The money spent and not saved. The words I said before I knew how big a crater they would leave in my mother’s or father’s or husband’s heart. I weigh my good deeds against my bad — one from column A, one from column B — and I am St. Peter, and this night, like so many sleepless nights, is my judgment day, and I do not pass muster. 

I flip onto my right side, and my mind drums to the beat of what if, what it, what if. My heart takes up the tattoo. Fool I am for watching the 11 o’clock news. Where is that ESP I always said I have? Come on, conjure up an answer to my what if questions or at least give me one little sign that everything’s going to be alright. The good guys will win. Wars will end. Markets will rise. Venom-spewing despots will seek asylum in some yet-to-be-discovered country and never be heard of again. I will find a pair of heels I can stand up in.

I look at the clock. I’ve been staring at the wall for three hours. I pray for sleep. Give me just four hours, and I will be as happy as a five-year-old on Christmas morning. I will stick to my healthy eating plan all day. Lack of sleep makes me crave chocolate and leaves me too weak to not grab a nonpareil or four when I walk by the kitchen cabinet. And that could lead to a migraine and vertigo and maybe a pound of water weight and that will ruin my whole day. Because the pants I want to wear to dinner that night won’t be comfortable, and I’ll have to take a pill for the vertigo and won’t be able to have a glass of wine. And I hate sitting in a restaurant without a nice glass of Gavi. And the next thing I know its 6:30 in the morning. And I am awake. I suspect I exhausted myself to sleep.

I sit up, slide into my slippers and robe, shuffle toward the toilet, keeping quiet, snatching glasses, cellphone, watch. My brain is already whirring up to a groggy hyper-drive. Before I leave the bedroom, I look at my husband. He is still asleep. Covers tucked under his chin. He’s good for about eight to twelve hours every night. If I didn’t love him so much, I could really hate him for that.