Insomnia Better with Friendship

Each time I become more than six months pregnant, I develop predictable insomnia; it hits about three hours after I go to sleep and lasts from 20 minutes to four hours, possibly my body getting overly psyched up for being up at strange hours nursing, or otherwise persuading a brand new baby that night is actually night. Although surely I've gone way overboard, since I myself am not so convinced about that anymore!

Last time I was pregnant and awake during the ordained time for sleep, I spent the sacred time tossing and turning resentfully. In the final weeks of my pregnancy I waddled upstairs and created and some paintings, figuring at least if I did some constructive at night I wouldn't be down on myself for sleeping half the day away.

Sleeping half the day away is no longer a viable option with two kids, one of whom is blossoming into a full-fledged toddler...and all that that entails. Being creative is theoretically appealing. But the situation is so serious, so depressing in and of itself -- the dread of upcoming fatigue, the lack of seratonin produced on sleepless nights, that working away at possible masterpieces is not truly appealing.

So instead, I call my best friend who lives three hours earlier in California, just as her nighttime cell minutes kick in and the sky in neighborhood turns purple velvet in anticipation of the morning. And we talk and laugh about life, theology, coffee, peeing and everything in between, until it is time for us to go to bed at the same time - sort of. It's all relative, according to Einstein. And we feel God, whoever she is, stretching out the space and time, permeating our hearts across the distance with the gift of genuine, well-aged friendship.