Postcards: Get Some Sleep (Before the Week Ahead)

Someone put $1,900 into my pledged subscriptions last night. That person is way too kind.

Dear Fellow Expat:

For years I didn’t sleep well.

Doctors don’t ask about sleep health today.

They don’t ask about stress or exercise.

Neither diet nor crushing work-life balance.

Instead, they write scripts and offer pills to get you back to seven hours of sleep.

My doctor started with the “sleep aid” Ambien.

What an adventure. My dreams – a mishmash of frantic clichés.

First, I was back in high school. Then I was unprepared for a test as my plane flew under a bridge, plus my teeth fell out…

I stopped taking Ambien after a month. Next stop, Trazadone.

In a Trazadone dream, I’d be stuck in Evanston, Illinois (where I went to college). I’d need to get home – eight miles away.

There were no people, cars, cabs, or trains operating.

So, I’d walk. Eight miles.

And when I had my condo building in sight, I’d wake up – feeling, mentally and physically, like I’d walked eight miles.

That was the dream. I took myself off Trazadone after a week.

But then… things got worse. Insomnia became my closest hobby.

Today…