2 AM Stuff

When you are married to a surgeon you learn how to sleep through a lot. When your spouse/sleeping partner takes call, they are paged throughout the night. Many of us learn how to sleep through not only the sound of the page but the resulting call to the hospital and detailed conversation. 

Parenthood revealed an entirely new talent--selective waking in response to kid sounds versus on-call sounds. I can be unaware of my husband conversing, dressing, and leaving in the middle of the night to handle trauma in the ER and yet hear tiny footsteps going to the bathroom or funny-sounding cough or whimper down the hall. (Ryland, by the way, has this talent in reverse. I have been astounded through the years at the kid and pet drama he sleeps through.) 

 In recent years, I have fallen victim to another sleep interruption--middle-of-the-night waking/anxious thoughts. Although it only occurs a couple of times a week, the disruption has been annoying enough to cause me to get curious about its origins. 

My evening routine is partially to blame. While warm chamomile tea is a delightful signal to my brain and body to wind down, my middle-aged bladder responds between midnight and 2AM with the need to adjust my fluid levels. Upon the return to bed, my racing, yet not-quite-coherent brain focuses on a concern that keeps me in thinking loops for an hour or more. It is maddening! 

I have tried writing, praying, breathing--none of which are reliable solutions. I finally settled on a theory that my busy-ness during the day allowed me to escape thoughts and concerns that God could only capture my attention with during the distraction-free darkness of 2AM. I tried to create more quiet space in my daily schedule--margin for daytime contemplation that might help alleviate the nighttime anxiety loops. I like this theory and the changes it has inspired, but it hasn't resolved my problem. 

Last week after a rough night of restlessness I randomly noticed a book on my shelf I had forgotten I owned. I pulled it down and immediately opened to this passage from Eugene Peterson's Message translation of Mark 7: Jesus called the crowd together again and said, “Listen now, all of you—take this to heart. It’s not what you swallow that pollutes your life; it’s what you vomit—that’s the real pollution.” 

Ryland and I had recently discussed the randomness of dreams and how they often feel like a messy collection of thoughts that never got filed away properly during the day. Dreams seem to be our brain's way of tidying up the scattered things--a junk drawer of sorts. 

I couldn't help but consider my middle-of-the-night thoughts similarly. Taking Peterson's translation into account, they feel akin to my heart's reflux. Maybe all these anxious thoughts and concerns are the issues I haven't fully surrendered. They are my heart's vomit. 

Frankly, I am unwilling to surrender my tea routine at this point--but I am recognizing the need to let go of some of the issues keeping me up at night. I am certainly not making a dent in them with sleepless nights!