Sleeping (or not)

"Late at night when all the world is sleeping, I stay up and...." well, I don't do anything. I just stay up. Lately, this nocturnal habit of mine has become a strange game that my mind and my body play with me, and I have no control. On Saturday, Matt dropped me off at home at about 11pm after we cooked dinner and watched a movie. I wasn't particularly tired, but I got myself prepared for bed. And then my body revolted. I stayed up until 7am. I watched the entire season so far of Kirstie Alley's Big Life. Its a good show, and I really did laugh out loud numerous times, but WHAT?!

So last night (Sunday), all I could think about was how I was going to get back into my bed and not do what the bed was intending. Not sleep. I did sleep, but only after assessing every detail of the previous day and night, trying to figure out why I hadn't slept. And the major thought that kept scrolling through my head was will I ever sleep again? Of course I will. We can't live without sleep, and as I found out yesterday as I was working, we definitely can't function to the best of our abilities without sleep. But still, the thought of never sleeping again was scary.

I have mild, self-diagnosed insomnia. I have a hard time turning my brain off at night, simply put. During the day, if you told me that I had 32 minutes before I had to be somewhere, I would lay down and use 30 of those minutes for a nap. I can nap on command. A full night's sleep, however, is a large, looming challenge most nights. Once I fall asleep, I am a champion; you can't wake me up with a tornado or a house fire. Its the getting there that tends to be so hard.

Last night, although I did fall asleep at a reasonable hour (for me. Not for someone who has to get up for work at 6am), there were a few long seconds of panic as I couldn't get my head comfortable on my pillow. Okay, I know this is stupid, but these are really the things that I'm worrying and thinking about when I should be sleeping. And really, just for a second, imagine your most restless night. How frustrating it is to look at the clock every hour? The anxiety ripens as you realize at 1am you're not sleeping. 3 am. 4:30am. And then, instead of trying to actually get to sleep, your brain takes over and there is no possible way to get to a relaxed state. So, while most people will run for their medicine cabinet to fish out the benadryl or niquil, I give in to not sleeping. Its way easier.

I don't know why I am surprised. When I was little, I would fight sleep---we're talking wrestle, throw low punches, spit in the eyes of sleep. Please don't misunderstand, I have a very loving, respectful relationship with sleep now. But it is on my terms. That is my only rule.

And now onto all of the reasons I've pondered late at night as to why I'm not sleeping:

1. I coach high school girls. We are in season.





Yes, that's the only reason that I've come up with. Or the only one that doesn't involve a completely hallucinated, over-wrought life dilemma. And until you have been where I am, you have no idea.

But I will try to explain. I love softball, so that part of coaching is great. Its the kids that make it so hard, although rewarding (more so this year than last, so I guess we're going somewhere). But the damn kids. I like to think that I was not so stubborn and strong willed at the tender age of 14-17, but lets face it, I probably was. I find myself thinking daily where have all the parents gone? Because (and I know that I have no children, so have no real grounds to say this) coaching is as much parenting as it is about the sport. I tell you what, these kids are disrespectful and don't know it, they have no concept of responsibility, and they are fearless. Do I sound like a grandparent yet?

I spend about 80% of my time right now figuring out the next way to get through to them. The other 20% I spend reminding myself that I have to eat, take a shower, and somehow sleep. With my lessons, the parents and the kids have come to me for a service in which they are paying outright for my knowledge and opinion. With my team, they could care less if I'm even paid for my job, are worried about who is starting where and why so-and-so didn't get to hit her next at bat because she fell down on her ass swinging at a ball four feet over her head, and are we going to get out of school early for our 6:30pm game? And the simple fact of the matter is that it is my team. So every decision, down to what color socks we wear, is mine. Which, in some senses, is fabulous. Most of the time, its a headache. Don't ask me if you can go to the bathroom, just go. If you want to know why you aren't playing, just ask. When I said be on the bus at 3:30, I didn't mean 3:35, and yes, you really will run for being late. All of these issues were addressed at the beginning of the year and handed to you on a piece of paper that probably never made it to your car. And you ask why I always seem frustrated?

On that note, I am a positive coach. I make it a point to never belittle a player, and if I need to call someone out, I'm going to pull them off to the side and ask them quietly what the hell they were thinking. After last season, which tested my patience to the limit, I've had to become much more okay with the fact that some of the kids I have to put on the field just suck. And its not their fault. I grew up in a softball community, and some of these kids have not, will not, and do not want to be exposed to that. I still have to find ways for them to win. And I also have to teach them that it is not okay to YELL "shit" every time they mess up.

This is the point of no sleep.

The point where most of the time I think about what I need to do with them for it to click together (while at the same time realizing that it might not happen), but often I think that being a head coach is just not for me. I'm not going to lie, I think I'm really good at it. If I didn't, I probably would have walked away. The question is, do I enjoy it? And, yes, there are a lot of moments when I am a proud mama bear. There are also a lot of moments when I stick my hands deep in my pockets, kick the dirt, and think if they aren't going to do what I'm telling them to do, we aren't going to win, and this is just...stupid. What I need is one kid who takes it seriously to graduate, come back, and tell me that I impacted her life positively in some way. Because I'm beginning to think that most of my kids will graduate and never think of softball again.

I want them to at least feel some responsibility to get to class on time, and if that's the only thing, I need to know that I did that.

Today on the bus, driving to a horrible, ugly loss, I was doing stats for my team. The highest batting average is .588 and the lowest is .279 (I don't know how to punctuate after a decimal number. Is it ".279."? or...I don't know) Last year, the highest batting average was a little over .300, so please, take a minute and imagine my surprise and delight. I haven't done stats all year! Because the stats don't mean anything if you aren't winning, right? Well, this little surprise gave me that glimmer of hope in my cold, hard heart that maybe we're doing something right. Maybe it is worth sticking around for.

You can ask Matt, I am way less a bitch than I was last season. I couldn't separate softball and my team from real life. And I was in complete and total boss mode. I think I've gotten a lot better, although I still don't sleep during season. But six weeks is not a long time to lose sleep over. Maybe I'll figure that out next year.

And now that I've analyzed the hell out of the not sleeping conundrum, maybe when I go lay my head on my pillow, there will be nothing left to ponder.