I have always been brought up to understand myself, look for the truth and think for myself....so why a Civil Servant I here you ask?
A moment of weakness that has lasted over twenty years...but that's another post.
Being an insomniac is not fun. I wake nine nights out of ten at four am or thereabouts. Most of the time I go back to sleep or at least slumber with my headphones on listening to Radio Seven or Four. It has always been thus for as long as I can remember. Trips to the Doctor, herbal remedies and relaxation tapes have helped but never for very long; lavender helps but this wears off quickly as well - there is something soothing about smelling like an old lady, staring at the ceiling for hours on end though.
Once, as a student at College, while enjoying six cups of coffee an evening revising like mad I went to a particularly enthusiastic Doctor for help; he prescribed a tablet, to be taken an hour before I "intended to sleep."
"Intended" - interesting word for an eighteen year old with too much to cram into his brain and an extreme coffee addiction. It worked though. The first night I took it at nine and barely made it into bed half an hour later. I slept for fourteen hours - without turning over and snoring like a throaty-buzz-saw. I woke to find my tongue as furry as a Persian cat and worried looks fixed on the faces of my Mum and Dad. They'd been trying to wake me for three hours! The tablets turned out to be tranqulisers - discovered after looking them up in the College Library - and they made a wonderful tinkling sound as I dropped them down the toilet.
The next night I slept for two hours, waking as usual at four. I cut my coffee intake, took long walks before bed every night and listened to the radio while I tried to get off to sleep. It took effect very slowly and my sleep patterns improved. But there was always the four am awakening.
Two months ago I woke as usual but this time I was uncomfortable. I got up leaving my partner to sleep. But instead of heading to my computer to write or to read the news I walked downstairs and sat on the sofa. I dropped off, the still coolness of the early morning prickling at my skin. As I jerked awake, struggling to quell anxiety and a jittering spasm in my arms a lightning bolt struck.
I was eight years old. I had been roused from the camp bed, where I slept in my grandparents living room during the summer holidays. I was up, sitting on the sofa climbing into jeans, vest, shirt and knitted jumper; then a hefty pair of socks and wellington boots, the rubber stiff and cold. By this time my Grandad had crept into the kitchen, boiled a kettle and come back into the room with a steaming cup of strong tea. We would sit together, in silence and enjoy the warming liquid.
We were going fishing. Walking three miles along silent streets, while cats stared at us from wall and pavement, to come to the Dorset coast at Sandsfoot Castle where he had his boat, pots and nets.
Sitting on the sofa, now aged forty-three, the time between Grandad's death and my last birthday being nearly thirty years and I had it. I looked down and saw the time - FOUR AM. We always got up at four, dressed, drank tea, sometimes at biscuits and then, at four thirty, we would slip through the front door leaving my Nan sleeping upstairs and head for the shore.
Four am - he had trained me so well that even now I wake to get up to go fishing with him. A few times I had dressed and then fallen asleep on the sofa, Grandad unable to wake me; eyes opening hours later, ashamed of myself and worried about him getting the prawns in without me. His silence on returning more devastating that a good telling off.
So there I sat, forty three, on my own sofa, ready and alert to go fishing. All this time and still waiting for a ghost.
It hasn't helped, this revelation. I woke this morning at four, listened to the radio for half an hour and then fell asleep until six. But at least I understand why I wake at four.
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