Must Have Been the Warm Milk

Insomnia, never have been much on sleeping, just something my body never required a lot of. But there is one it worries and she is always trying to think of ways to get me to sleep more. Go to bed early, don't take naps during the day. Do something, stay active, anything to help you burn energy. Tried and tried, but to no avail, sleep just wouldn't come to me. I would lay there hours on end and just stare at the ceiling or watch the moon shadows slowly traverse across my bedroom. I tried not thinking about her, that would just cause thoughts to dance in my head and lead off on another path. Eventually though I would drift off only to find myself waking after about two hours of a very deep sleep. No dreaming or waking thoughts, just in a deep sleep. I would always wake with a jolt. I never felt tired or felt as if I needed more sleep.

I do not know what precipitated this insomnia that I am now experiencing. Normal sleep for me is roughly four hours, maybe five, but never anymore than that. This is the way it has always been for my entire life. A habit my father got all the kids in. Always on with the bedroom light at 5am with his familiar "Rise and shine boys." breaking the evening's rest. Since getting into that habit at such a young age, if I slept anymore than that, I always felt as if I had wasted part of the day or missed out on something. Even in the Air Force I was awake before revelry. As I said, I do not know what has caused this insomnia to come over me, I have thought about it, it gives me something to do as I am laying there. Only thing I can think of is because I am missing her. I have never had anyone fill my thoughts as she does.

Dreams are rare for me. Rarely do they visit me when I sleep and most make no sense at all when I do. Never anything in my past or with anything I had done that day. Most I remember for some reason, not that there is any reason to remember them at all. But yet I do and I file them away to be forgotten eventually.

With that little bit of history behind I will continue to the reason for the title. I love milk, but it has to be ice cold and preferably with cake or cookies or something else to snack on while I drink it. Well we were talking the other night about my sleep or rather the lack of it. She has told me many times how this causes her worry and feels it could affect my health mentally and physically. The other evening she suggested that I drink milk before going to sleep, that by drinking it, it may help. Not the way I am used to drinking it though, it had to be warm milk. I have never even liked the chill knocked off my milk, much less warm. None the less, she convinced me to at least try and see if it would work. Well I did, I drank it like a kid taking cod liver oil, not really relishing the thought at all. Drinking it as fast as I could to get it over with, she commended me for doing it and then posted one of those sticking out tongue smilies at me. After a while I have to admit, I did feel more relaxed and a few yawns actually escaped from me. I told her and the next few words to me were as familiar as those my dad used to say when waking me, "Time for bed kiddo.". Reluctantly I said my goodnight s to her and our "soons" were exchanged. I went and laid down and to my surprise I drifted off into sleep, not laying there as I would normally do, but there was a side effect, I had dreams all night. I could not wait to tell her about the sleep at least, but when I saw her, she beat me to it asking if I had slept that night. With a smiling smiley I told her, "Yes as a matter of fact I did.", this seemed to please her. I then told her about the side effects, the dreams. The context of the dreams are not important for this story, but they were about her and I told them to her. She responded with her "ic" and a smiley followed. For the last few nights I have been drinking "my" warm milk before going to sleep and each time I have a very relaxed feeling that comes over me and I know sleep is just moments away. I look forward to it, the side effects that is, because I know I will be seeing her again. I hope she worries less now, especially knowing that she was very instrumental in seeing that I get more sleep.

Slowly I have been learning to listen to her and her thoughts concerning my health. I should you know, after all she has a set of very active and healthy twin girls that she applies the same things to as she requests of me. Yes, it must have been the warm milk.