Occasionally, there are blocks of days in which I find it impossible to get to sleep. This weekend has been one of those blocks. A few days before I left home to return to Montreal, I started falling asleep much later than I normally do, even though I was waking up at the same time that I always get up at. The night before my departure, I was up until 4:30 AM. My 7 AM wake-up has never been more cruel.
There’s nothing really wrong with me: I very rarely drink anything caffeinated, I exercise regularly, I’m in good health. It usually occurs around times of higher-than-usual stress, like exams or other worries. Not sleeping obviously adds greatly to my stress, so it’s a bit of a bummer that my body considers insomnia to be an appropriate response.
But my occasional insomnia has allowed me the extra time to do a number of things that I might never have stumbled upon if I had not been up half the night. Maybe I should be writing the next Great Canadian Novel instead, but I always feel brainless and exhausted when I’m in the throes of insomnia. I can accomplish no great work. Instead, I do things that relax me, and don’t make me think too much. Here are some alternatives to vegging out in front of your computer when insomnia strikes. There are only so many gossip websites you can check for updates, but there are a million projects you can accomplish on a night of no sleep.
1. Learn a new skill
It was supposed to be a cat, but it looks like a mouse!
Learning to tat is one of my proudest accomplishments. After scrolling through a couple of tutorials on the internet, I made the loosest, stringiest piece of lace that I have ever seen. But good gravy, what a thrill. I’ve since moved on to more professional pieces of edging, and some fun, useless pieces like the mousecat above.
I can remember when I was a kid, that I asked my mom how to make fabric with only a needle. She thought I meant weaving, or knitting, or crocheting, but I was adamant that only a sewing needle could be used. I tried endlessly to knot pieces of string into this ‘fabric’ that I knew existed. I’ve since learned that what I was trying to emulate was needlepoint lace. I still can’t do that (that’s for another block of insomnia), but tatting (using a special kind of needle/spool hybrid called a shuttle) gives me a sense of satisfaction that I have finally accomplished what I spent my childhood wondering about.
2. Primp
My mom only did my hair in two hairstyles as a kid: two mega-high pigtails, or a simple braid. I don’t remember wearing my hair loose very much, because it always got in my face that way. Before my insomnia started, I had no idea how to do my hair. I got so sick of it always hanging in my face that I chopped it all off in high school and wore a pixie cut or a short bob for years. Now that my hair has grown, I’m faced with it always hanging in my face again. Insomnia nights provide ample time to learn every braid ever invented, and to primp my hair into all the retro pinup looks I can imagine. I may be exhausted, but good gravy does my hair look great.
3. Revamp my wardrobe cheaply
I made that blouse! I made those slacks!
I won’t say what age exactly, but I sewed and crocheted little outfits for Beanie Babies until an embarrassingly mature age. That was the extent of my sewing until the first year of university, when I got sick of how poorly a lot of ready-to-wear clothing fit me. I decided to take in some shirts, and eventually, emboldened by the successful alterations, to make a few of my own from scratch. Using a really groovy 70s pattern-drafting book as a guide, I made my own patterns and made some terribly ugly blouses. I even wore these blouses, because I was so proud of them. Now I tend to stick to vintage patterns and amend them as necessary. The shirt shown above, for example, is supposed to be a dress. I just left off the skirt. I did draft the pattern for the slacks in the photo; luckily, I left out all the weird details and frou-frou embellishments of my awful blouses and the slacks turned out well.
I sew by hand mostly, because I can do it at night without waking up my roommates with the roar of a sewing machine. Stealth insomnia!
4. Read all my childhood favourites
This is what I ended up doing during my latest bout of insomnia. It felt nice to read a couple of childhood classics on the night before I left my childhood room. Children’s literature is an underrated and under-appreciated genre; some of the best books that I have ever read have been written for children. Authors can get away with creepy or heartbreaking storylines that would never get published for adult readers, because it would be too disturbing or depressing. But kids will eat that stuff right up. In rediscovering your childhood bookshelf, go beyond the obvious (I’m lookin’ at you, Harry Potter) and find the weird, important little books that you might have forgotten. This summer, I made it through:
Jacob Have I Loved by Katherine Paterson
Coraline by Neil Gaiman
The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare
Inkheart by Cornelia Funke
Number the Stars by Lois Lowry
The House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer
Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery
If I Just Had Two Wings by Virginia Frances Schwartz
The Breadwinner by Deborah Ellis
With Love from Booky by Bernice Thurman Hunter
Players of Prince Arthur 