Apparently Sleeping is Overrated

I suck at this. I realize it's been more than a week since I posted anything, but every time I sit down to write something, the words don't come. The only reason I'm here right now is because it's two thirty in the morning and I can't sleep. Again.

I've been having bouts of insomnia the past few weeks. Here's a typical night for me:

• 10:00pm -- Go to bed and fall asleep with relative ease
• 12:00am -- Wake up, go pee, fall back to sleep with relative ease
• Sometime between 2:00-2:30am -- Wake up again. Lay there cursing myself for being awake again. Finally get up to go pee again thinking maybe that will help me fall back to sleep (don't ask where that logic comes from)
• 2:30am-4:30/5:00am -- Lay there hoping that maybe I'll magically fall back to sleep if I lay there with my eyes closed long enough before finally giving in and playing solitaire or fruit ninja on my ipod for hours
• ~5:00am -- Finally fall back to sleep after staring at my ipod so long that I feel like my eyes may fall out of my head if I stare at it any longer. 

At that point I'll usually sleep through Jen's alarm (which goes off at 5:30 and then proceeds to go off every ten minutes for the next forty minutes or so). I'll wake up slightly right before she leaves for work when she kisses me goodbye. And then I'll sleep on and off until around 9:00am.

Obviously this isn't how every singe night goes. The times vary from night to night. Some nights, like the one described above, are worse than others. Some aren't as bad, though I don't ever seem to sleep completely throughout the night. A good night consists of me waking up every couple of hours, but I'll actually be able to fall back to sleep instead of laying there awake for hours on end.

I know I shouldn't be complaining because at least I don't have to get up to go to work in the mornings. It's not like I can't sleep in to make up for the sleep lost during the night, but it's still frustrating. This started before my back surgery but at that point I chalked it up to not being able to sleep because or my leg/back pain. Now I don't have that excuse.

My head does seem to swim a lot lately and I don't sleep well when my brain is muddled with a million different thoughts. Which is part of the reason why I'm sitting here tonight...or this morning? (when does it cease being night and become morning?) I was hoping that writing and clearing my head a bit would help me sleep. The error in that is I've been sitting here for forty five minutes and it's taken me that long just to write all the preceding stuff. If I went ahead and spewed out everything else that was jammed into my brain I'd be sitting here for another two hours. And while that's all well and good, that doesn't exactly help me with my sleeping, it just gives me something to do and makes the hours I'm awake go by a little faster than if I was just laying in bed.

I do think there's something wrong with me though. We went to dinner last night because we have zero groceries in the house and I started crying in the car on the way. For no reason. I felt on the verge of tears when we left and at one point Jen looked over and asked if I was okay cause I looked like I was about to cry and I just lost it. I mean, who does that? I don't even know exactly why I was crying. She kept asking me what was wrong, but I literally could not explain why I was sitting there crying. I mean, I know it's almost "that time of the month", but should I really be that hormonal?

At one point she asked if I was depressed. I don't know? I've never been depressed before. Is that what it's like? Plus, what do I have to be depressed about? I have an amazing girlfriend who loves me. I have a wonderful family who loves me and would do anything for me. I have a fantastic new house. I have a job....

My job. That is one factor in my life I'm not happy with. I'm four weeks into my sick leave and I'm honestly not looking forward to going back. I haven't missed being there for the past four weeks. Every time I realize that it's been four weeks, it makes me sad because that means I'm painstakingly close to having to go back to work. I really wish I was more excited about the prospect of going back to work, but, if I'm being honest with myself, I'm not.

Hell, maybe I am depressed. I'm 27 years old and I don't know what I want to do with my life. I'm not happy with my job, but what else am I going to do? Where else am I going to go?

I love my family. I love my girlfriend. I love our life together. I just wish I loved my job.

I know the solution everyone is thinking in their head right now, "Well then get off your lazy ass and find another job!" If only it were that easy. I'm honest when I say I don't know what I want to do with my life. How do you even go about starting to find another job when you don't know what you want to do? All I know is I don't want to settle. Finding another job would be all well and good, but not if it meant I'd have to look for another one in a year or two because I wasn't happy there either.

I guess it's just a vicious cycle I'll have to endure. I'm obviously never going to find what I'm looking for if I just sit back waiting for it to find me...