This business of not sleeping at night is starting to take a toll. I thought I’d fought it off for one more day by sleeping a little later this morning, thanks to the phone being quiet for a change. (I actually got a little worried when it didn’t ring at all until afternoon, but I was too tired to do anything about it.) And I did start the day with a little more energy, but I hit that same wall I always hit, at about the same time.

The worst part of this isn’t the physical strain I’m feeling. That’s part of it, of course. My muscles ache and I can’t seem to move with all my body parts working toward the same goal. That’s why I keep dropping things, or running into things, and it’s why whatever I do I do slowly. Slower every day, in fact.

It’s the mental and emotional part that’s doing the most damage. I can’t keep focused on what I’m doing, and I get alternately angry and weepy. I was downcast this afternoon when it started to get dark so early, but then I tried to keep working and I ended up slamming things around because I was frustrated. Nobody would want to be around me right now. I’m yelling at people I have no particular gripe with. The Boss took the brunt of it today, but only because he was the only person I talked to during the day.

If only I felt as listless, lethargic and lousy at night as I do during the day, then I’d probably get to bed early and get enough sleep to make my days better. It works the other way around, for some reason. Maybe I’m just too tired to fall asleep at night. Maybe something deep inside me is trying to punish myself for something (like, say, being so miserable all day, and not getting enough work done, and then whining about it in my journal).

It’s now almost as if I’m past caring. It’s as if I’ve given up, and resigned myself to feeling like this all the time. That could be the key to surviving it, come to think of it. If I don’t let it get to me, I can relax and take whatever comes. Why worry about not sleeping, when I don’t sleep whether I worry about it or not? Yeah, that’s the ticket.