Sleeplessness

For most of my life, I've suffered from the inability to sleep when surrounded by any amounts of light or inconsistent noise. I get it from my mom, who has to have a noise machine on at nights in order to have a great sleep. And even then, it's not always enough. My dad can fall asleep on a moment's notice, for which I envy him.

There are a few times when being unable to sleep comes in handy, such as when on a long drive in the car. There have been times when I've driven over 20 hours straight through the night, and even though extremely tired, I knew I wouldn't doze off. Contrast this with my twin brother who fell asleep at the wheel when he and I were on I-44 years ago. Fortunately, we only side swiped a guy in a van, though his ability to sleep too well could have had disastrous effects.

This can also come in handy when having to stay up late to finish homework. There have been multiple nights when I've had to study well into the night in order to complete an assignment due the next morning. Of course that could lead into a whole other topic about procrastination, but I'll not go there.

Often my sleeplessness is the worst when there are things I'm struggling with, whether school, work, or relationally related. When I had my first test of my first college class last fall, I didn't fall asleep until 8 hours after I'd initially lied down. This led to 1 hour of sleep that night, causing me to be quite tired for the test. The same thing happened again during finals week, as I'd be going over Calculus problems in my head. Thankfully I've become more conditioned to tests, so that's not a common issue anymore.

Even though I regularly have a difficult time sleeping, this will only be compounded in the future. I plan to have a wife and children someday. My wife better not snore, or we'll need separate rooms. But crying children are inevitable, and I can only imagine I'll be the one getting up every time they do so.
Also, sleep becomes more difficult as one ages, especially in the golden years. If my wife snores during those years, I'll officially become a full-fledged insomniac!