pumpkin time

Why is night time so hard?

Someone who worked at a hospital once told me it seemed that people tended to pass away in the early hours of the morning more than other times. I remember when I had chronic asthma it was always much worse in the middle of the night. And, so it would seem, my depression/loneliness is worse around now.

It’s odd because normally I don’t mind being up at night. Even if I feel I should be sleeping, night time has always been my time. I always seemed to get the most writing done at night. I could read and read and read until I heard the morning birds. I just liked being awake when it was so quiet and still. But there was something about knowing my mum or flatmate was asleep in the other room that made me feel safe somehow. But at the moment, being home alone for extended periods of time, it just feels wrong. I feel adrift and alone.

You’d think I was a little kid or something, wailing at being away from her mumma for a night or two. One night I can handle. A couple of nights, that’s fine. But at the moment, 10 nights out and with another week to go before mum comes home, I just lie awake in my bed, feeling like time has stood still and I am going to be stuck in this long, dark night forever. Reading can’t distract me; my eye scans down the page but doesn’t take the meaning of the words in, and my brain is still ticking over, catastrophising, despairing. I try to pray but they are fits and starts (never am I more grateful for the Holy Spirit’s intercession than at times like these). I am grateful for my friends, and being occupied during the day and the evening, but those times aren’t the problem. It’s this time, the graveyard shift, post-midnight, the time when it isn’t seemly to call anyone up for no apparent reason. The time when I lie and stare at my cat and wish she was capable of human speech. It’s a bit worrisome really.

I’ll get through it. But, as always, if you’re a praying person please pray for me that I would be able to maintain perspective and common sense, and that my brain would allow my body to rest!