Another sleepless night (Io non dormo, e penso a te...)

Chronicle of a sleepless night

(Perhaps I should start from the - lack of - events of the evening.)

The evening sees me with less cramps than usual, jumping about in the gym, proud to show off my great heart beat and endurance to a shocked S&S guy, who calls me "dearest" and laughs when I say that I'm not afraid of whatever he will make me do, tonight.

So, off to the cross-trainer, treadmill, cross-trainer again, abs, bum, arms and shoulders, weights, a whole hour and a half and I'm barely breaking a sweat. Final stretching and I'm in the changing room getting dressed in my office smart kit.
Please note: the B&S guy has greeted me twice: once when I have arrived, and once while I was going from machine to machine, calling me the sweetest of names, which nobody has ever called me. He asks if everything is ok, explains what we are going to do (funny, that personal trainers always say "we": after all, "they" don't do much apart from showing "us" what to do and how. Then they only look!), smiles when I say that I feel great and says that I'll soon be swimming like a dolphin.

I am slow as usual, and only smile and reply weak sentences, I don't even get near him, in fact, and consequently I spend the whole session looking at him from the distance, in the mirrors, walking about, pretending to be looking for the S&S guy to ask him things (that is only half true: matter of fact, I only partially listen to his instructions - I have other things in my mind, that is clear, I guess? - and have to invent the time I must spend on the treadmill, or the incline and speed to select, or the reps...).
When I go back to the counter, at the end of the session, to see about my next appointment, the B&S guy looks at me once, only once. But he's on the other side of the gym, taking care of a guy with a really bad back and a whole lot of complaints and refusals to stretch any further...

So home I go, and have a banana, a mug of hot milk and 4 biscuits; I watch tv, or better I outline the parts of the story I had left behind in the summer while watching tv, and I start yawning at about 11, so I decide it's bed-time (my first prime-time mistake: yawning must not be considered as a go-to-bed warning).

So off to bed I go, and I think I fall asleep right away, with blurred images of the B&S guy and I chatting merrily in a bubble of bright silence.
It's some time later in the night. I believe it must be about 4, as my awakenings...but no, I cannot trust this, considering the last sleepless nights at any possible time of the night.

So, let's check: 1.37.

Honestly, I am shocked. And agitated, totally restless, I understand this is not going to fade and I am not going back to sleep just by changing position.
So I get up, and get changed in shirt, sport bra and gym trousers. Because the plan was, and has been for the whole week, to wake up a bit early and do some easy work out and stretching prior to anything else, to awaken my body. Well, here I am then!

Ball, matt, everything set, walkman playing R.E.M., and me breathing in and out with every movement for a whole hour.

As "Find the river" begins, I am halfway through the final stretching and just as electric and full of stamina as before. I think that if I were living alone and had a stationary bike or a cross-trainer (the treadmill is definitely too noisy) I would use them right now. But I can't, and anyway, an hour is enough. Now I need to cool down.
Hot milk, my bed, and the book I am struggling to continue. I read for about an hour. Check the time, it's 4.30 by now. More yawns come my way and still I don't realise that they are NOT a switch-off-the-light-and-sleep signal. But I switch off the light and try to sleep. After texting about 7 people to let them know that I am sleepless because I have only one single thought in my mind and it's driving me crazy (oddly enough, I get an answer almost immediately from a friend whom I thought would be fast asleep at this time of the night).
My dreams are all but normal for the next (hours? minutes? who knows?) and I wake up with the weather forecast followed by Madonna on the radio.
I only have the time to prepare my liquorice tea and an apple for work, and here I am, mind in a thick mist of confusion and the usual mess on my desk, plus a nervous boss who wants me to send an order confirmation to Australia so that they can open a letter of credit and gets angry when I say I haven't sent it yet, "it' already eight p.m. there!", "well", I'd like to reply, "then they couldn't open the L/C even if they wanted to, right? Or are Australian banks open 24 hours/day?". But my mind is trying to wake up, and this is the strangest feeling, for my body is perfectly awake and if I could I would go for a run right now. (In fact, tonight I'm going swimming.). So I don't reply to my boss and go back to the mess on my desk. And guess what? All the time I've had the idée fixe in my mind, of a way to talk to the B&S guy, and the continuous daydream of his smile directed to me and only me.

Any idea on how I can go back to a normal, bored me? One who sleeps and is content with running, reading, writing? One who simply dreams of a better job and doesn't lose her head over a hopeless romance that will never begin?
I am never satisfied, am I?