Sleep comes slowly most nights, and not at all if I try it in my bed. So I lean back onto the family-room couch, pillows behind my back, a stiff but warm blanket wrapped around me when it’s cold. I watch cartoons, sometimes with a bourbon or scotch in my hand, for as long as it takes.
I pray there, cartoons muted, unburdening my worries onto God. I’m so glad he has broad shoulders to set them on. He never complains, never tells me to get on with it. He just listens. When I remember, I thank him for blessing me as he has, and I ask him to remind me to count those blessings. I feel foolish that I feel my worries so much more acutely than my blessings. My blessings have been so powerful, while my worries change with the seasons. But worries shout so loudly.
Lately I’ve been dozing off to old Popeye cartoons. Their simple stories charm me, distract me, help me let go. Most of the time I wake up in the middle of the night, shut off the TV, and finish sleeping in my bed. Sometimes I sleep through the night facing the TV.
Before sleep began to elude me, my bedroom was always the dustiest room in the house. Now it’s the family room. I wish my worries would settle like the dust on the coffee table, and be as easy to wipe away.
