I love you, Lunesta

I haven't been sleeping well lately. It's a shock, I know, but the shaky job situation (oh, did I fail to mention that my group has been given a heads up that our futures are questionable?), the Summer of Diarrhea, the little boy sleeping in a Big Boy Bed, the Big Boy moving to an even bigger school, they've all managed to wake me up around 2:00 every night and help me flail around in bed, trying to get comfortable and fall back to sleep and failing miserably.

I'm really resistant to taking sleeping pills. I know, everyone else is doing it, but I never did. I'd go to meetings and hear everyone talking about popping an Ambien so they could sleep in a hotel. Not me! I can sleep like the dead in a hotel, it probably has something to do with 90% of the above-mentioned issues being temporarily out of sight.

I heard this crazy story from the Ambien rep a few years ago, about a woman who took an Ambien on a Friday night. She woke up on Saturday morning, refreshed and ready to go. Her kids were dawdling so she said "come on, guys, we've gotta get ready for the soccer game and birthday party" or whatever it was they had planned for the day - it was a big day with lots of events they had lined up.

Her son said "mom, we already did all that, that was yesterday." That's right, folks, she woke up on Saturday and went about her day business as usual and had absolutely no memory of it. Total amnesia. That story scared the crap out of me. She drove her kids around!

Anyhoodle, a couple days ago I had to wake up early to go to Omaha, and my eyes could barely function they were so swollen. That night, I caved. I took my first 2 mg Lunesta and slept great! Not like I was drugged. I was still able to wake up and help Cooper at whatever hour it was he needed help (will these little people NEVER sleep through the night without waking??!!), and fell right back to blissful sleep.

I did it again the next night.

Two nights and I kind of felt like a junkie. A well-rested junkie. A junkie with slightly smaller bags under her eyes. Now I'm scared to go to bed without taking one. What if I have a horrible night and totally regret it? Then again, I'm also not interested in being hooked on sleeping pills, especially since I've seen the damage they can do.

You know what I'm talking about.

I'm talking about Hope on Days of Our Lives. Don't pretend like you don't read Soap Opera Digest when you're in the grocery store checkout line. I even bought one last week, it was a new low for me.

Apparently, Hope started taking sleeping pills to deal with the insomnia from her divorce and then she started waking up in the night as a totally different person. This alter-ego sleepwalker lady committed all sorts of crimes and even tried to off her soon-to-be-ex-husband Bo, although I can't really blame her because they're not even divorced yet and he's blatantly making out with that weirdo Carly with her facial twitches.

So. No more sleeping pills for me, no sirree. But it was nice while it lasted.

- H