The Things We Learn at the Pool

 

I get so tired of It. Feeling like shit from It. Complaining about It. Hearing solutions to It from everyone I meet. But what do I expect? If I complain about It, people always have suggestions, solutions. Have you tried this drug? Melatonin? Gabapentin? Ambien. How about meditation? Do you exercise enough? Turn off your phone before going to bed? Stop watching any devices with blue light? Make sure your room is dark, quiet and temperature perfect? They know. Even if they don’t.  Even if they’ve never had insomnia in their life. They can sleep just fine. Why can’t you?

            As I write this, I’m suffering. But I can solve It, right?

            No. I can’t.

            Unless, I try this:

            “When I have insomnia, what I do is imagine a filing cabinet, floating in the air, right across from me, where I’m lying. And when I have a thought that is keeping me awake, I just pull it right out of my brain, take it in my hand, and file it in a drawer. Then I close the drawer. And breathe….”

            “Wow,” I exclaim, rinsing the shampoo out of my hair post swim. “I love that image.”

            “Yes, well, I find that it works for me. Everyone is different of course….”

            “Yeah, that’s true. But I will try the Filing Cabinet strategy for insomnia.”

            “It’s amazing what we learn at the pool,” LS comments, turning off her shower and wringing the water from her long dark hair.

            “That’s why we come here,” D says. “To better ourselves.”

            And, I would agree with this. The pool does make me a better person. I mean, without it, number one, I’d be a blob without swimming. Number two, I’d go crazy without swimming. Number three, I wouldn’t learn valuable lessons from other swimmers.

            Or from myself as a swimmer.

            Like perseverance. I do feel awful today. But I still came to the pool even though the insomnia was bad last night. Didn’t fall asleep till 3:30 AM, after watching two episodes of Cheers. One where Norm is painting Kirstie’s apartment; the other I can’t even remember because I fell asleep halfway through it and when I woke up to turn off the computer, nothing that was happening made any sense.

            No filing cabinets, but repeats of Cheers do seem to put me to sleep.

            My friend, Miss W, sent me an article from the NYT about cognitive shuffling to cure insomnia. This is where you pick a word, say, “Pickle” and then you think of as many words as possible that begin with P. This is supposed to reshuffle the brain from ruminating on whatever it was you were worried about and detract your attention to senseless unrelated (except for the common first letter)  nonsense words. Pickle. Porn. Putt. Predominant. Persimmon. Play. Pug. Then when you run out of P words, you’re supposed to go back to your first word and take the second letter of it, in this case, “I”, and come up with words that start with this letter. ( Cognitive Shuffling)

            I tried this last night.

            It didn’t work. I ran out of P words and then I couldn’t remember what the first word was that I started with and got frustrated and see? Frustration isn’t conducive to sleep.

            Tonight, then, I may try the file cabinet method. I do like the originality of it. The image and the action. The fact that we can file away our anxieties and once they’re closed in a drawer, we can relax.

            But what if the drawer gets stuck? Or what if the worry I’m having is just too big to fit in the drawer? Like, Climate Change. Hurricane Polo rampaging down off the coast of Mexico is the strongest hurricane this season by far, with 180-mile winds and 200-mile gusts. Sure, I’m not going to Mexico. Or even Southern California where I saw on the news that they were preparing for landfall of this storm in Long Beach where my nephew lives….

            See?  It’s a big worry! Not just Climate Change, but my nephew too!

            But I suppose, since the filing cabinet is in my imagination, it can expand. The drawers can be deep and long. The cabinet high and strong.

            It would hold all of my ruminations.

            Well…. maybe….

            I turn the shower off, grab my suit, dump it in the water wringer, holding it down for a few seconds. Spacing out for a moment to catch my breath.

            I really need to sleep.

            If only I could.

            But the filing cabinet awaits. I’ll try it tonight. At least I won’t have to remember letters.

            So, obviously, it’s worth a try!